Argentina’s tax office steps up oversight of underground mining

Argentina is considered one of the most attractive countries for cryptocurrency mining due to cheap electricity and stable internet.

The Argentine Revenue Authority (AFIP) has stepped up its surveillance of illegal mining and has discovered three underground crypto farms in the past seven days. Two of them are located in the city of Cordoba and another in San Juan. The latter was reportedly discovered through a company that delivered mining equipment. The company operated without a license.

Farms in Cordoba were tracked down by the energy trail – the miners consumed more than 85,000 kilowatts of electricity, which cost them $7,000 per month. One of the farm management companies had $200,000 in undeclared income, as well as $600,000 invested in mining equipment that was not accounted for anywhere.

It is reported that all the equipment found in Córdoba was located in a cold room designed to store fruit. Law enforcement officers from AFIP managed to trace the addresses to which the mined currency was sent:

“One of the companies carried out about 474 transactions with ether from January 31 to today. They managed to mine 137.25 ETH, which is equivalent to $217,000. Naturally, they were not declared.”

The low cost of stable power supply to farms and the speed of the Internet attract small and large mining companies such as Bitfarms, a Nasdaq-listed mining conglomerate. The company is already building a huge farm that will accommodate more than 55,000 miners.

Earlier this month, AFIP won a digital forfeiture case, allowing the regulator to block digital accounts and seize taxpayers’ crypto assets.