Bitcoin Miners Trapped in Alleged $20 Billion Venezuela Bribery Scheme

[ad_1]

The President of Venezuela addresses the media to give an update on the recent legislative elections during a press conference at the Palacio de Miraflores on December 8, 2020 in Caracas, Venezuela. On Sunday 6, Venezuelans voted for the legislative elections with a turnout of 31% and 68.4% of the vote for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) according to the National Electoral Council. (Photo by Carolina Cabral/Getty Images)Getty Images

Large-scale bitcoin miners have been forced to shut down operations in Venezuela amid the nationwide crackdown on corruption.

Petrleos de Venezuela, SA, the national oil and gas company, is short between $3 billion and $20 billion. Some of the main Chavismo leaders, such as the former president of PDVSA, Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah, are suspected during this anti-corruption investigation. The Superintendencia Nacional de Criptoactivos, also known as SUNACRIP, is at the center of this process because it was used to liquidate PDVSA’s sales after US sanctions against the company and was the main national institution involved in all matters cryptocurrency, including bitcoin mining. .

Other crypto businesses, like crypto exchanges and payment platforms that were licensed under SUNACRIP’s leadership, also suspended their operations due to the “regular background.” Venezuela’s crypto industry, considered one of the strongest crypto ecosystems in the world in 2017, came to an abrupt halt.

It all started when President Nicols Maduro created Venezuela’s first national cryptocurrency in 2018, the petro token backed by Venezuelan oil and a basket of similar commodities.

The Petro and failed attempts to evade sanctions

The Venezuelan regime created SUNACRIP shortly after issuing the petro in an effort to evade US sanctions. But the United States also issued sanctions against the petro in 2019, so the oil-backed cryptocurrency only works within Venezuela’s borders.

Despite the robust bitcoin mining industry scattered throughout Venezuela in recent years and the popularity of cryptos in the country, even today only Maduros supporters and public employees use the petro cryptocurrency. This had little to no success, and according to their investigation and Maduros’ speech broadcast via Alberto News, when oil offered no profit or utility, SUNACRIP officials turned to a style approach mobsters, keeping for themselves the public money that was supposed to reach PDVSA’s coffers then became the unofficial dealers of Venezuelan oil to the world.

Venezuelan prisons are now full of men like Joselit Ramrez, president of SUNACRIP since 2018, and Rajiv Mosqueda, head of digital mining operations at SUNACRIP, as well as other relevant officials from PDVSA and the crypto watchdog. . These arrests are part of what Chavistas themselves call the PDVSA-crypto conspiracy, the anti-corruption investigation. These alleged criminals are accused of being part of the mafia corruption team of former vice-president Tareck El Aissamis. (Aissami quit his job at PDVSA after investigators arrested Ramirez and his associates). SUNACRIP reportedly used cryptos like USDt, to supplement oil sales around the world. So far, none of the accused officials have released any public statements related to the charges.

The problem is that the oil sales do not match SUNACRIP’s crypto treasury holdings or PDVSA’s balance sheet. Ramrez and his associates have been investigated for their involvement in these deals because at least $3 billion in assets are missing, potentially significantly more. But this is not the end. BitcoinBTC miners across the country are still dormant.

Bitcoin mining in Venezuela

Meanwhile, social media accounts and Telegram group chats across Venezuela have been buzzing since March 2023 about government agents making unusual visits to civilian bitcoin mining facilities.

The National Anti-Corruption Police is trying to find links between the PDVSA-crypto conspiracy and local bitcoin miners, while verifying that the government has complete and up-to-date documentation and licensing agreements with each Venezuelan bitcoin miner, as granted by SUNACRIP. Ramrez and Mosqueda were responsible for granting many of these licenses, so many people in the bitcoin mining industry are currently being investigated, to see which miners are indeed compliant with crypto policies. of the Maduro administration and to erase their potential links with the system of corruption.

There isn’t much public information about any of these investigations, only widespread rumors of detentions and confiscations, but so far there have been no documented arrests of civilian bitcoin miners, and as Teodosio Peraza, head of private bitcoin mining company Criptominero CA, explained to local newspaper Yaracuy al Da after being visited, all compliance checks are part of normal processes.

On the other hand, at least 500 SUNACRIP workers have been forced out of their jobs during the clandestine investigations, while the few remaining oil holders are complaining via social platforms like Twitter that oil is even less useful now, while the whole country is whispering about cryptocurrency and corruption.

It remains to be seen when, or if, Venezuelan crypto companies will return to reliable operations, especially with hundreds of bitcoin miners losing revenue every day their mining machines remain offline. There is no clarity on what comes next for miners and businesses in Venezuela’s once booming crypto industry. Perhaps the Maduro administration will restructure SUNACRIP or create a new regulatory body entirely.

Either way, the nations bitcoin sector is losing millions of dollars in bitcoin business opportunities, with Venezuelan miners forced offline until this investigation is resolved.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

I am a Bitcoin researcher, writer and translator with experience in sites like CoinTelegraph and CriptoNoticias. I’m also a Spanish content creator for Swan Bitcoin and host of the Satoshi Youtube channel in Venezuela. I hold and use modest amounts of BTC and USDT.

Read moreRead less

[ad_2]