Bitcoin Miners Trapped In Alleged $20 Billion Corruption Scheme In Venezuela
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Loading... - Beverly Garcia
- 08 May 2023
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Bitcoin miners in Venezuela have been affected by the country’s nationwide crackdown on corruption as part of a $20 billion corruption scheme.
Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil and gas company, is suspected to have missing funds of up to $20 billion. Political movement, Chavismo, including key leaders like former PDVSA President Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah, is also under suspicion.
SUNACRIP, the national institution concerned with all things related to cryptocurrency including bitcoin mining, was used for liquidating PDVSA’s sales after the U.S. sanctions against the company. Other crypto businesses, like crypto exchanges and payment platforms, have also paused their operations due to the regulatory context. Venezuela’s crypto industry, considered one of the world’s most robust crypto ecosystems back in 2017, has crawled to a grinding halt.
The Venezuelan government created the SUNACRIP shortly after issuing the petro with the goal of evading U.S. sanctions. But the U.S. 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 for the past years, only Maduro’s supporters and public employees use the petro cryptocurrency.
SUNACRIP officials turned into a mafia-style approach, keeping for them public money that was supposed to reach PDVSA’s coffers after becoming the non-official Venezuelan oil dealers for the world. The anti-corruption investigation has led to the arrest of officials from PDVSA and from the crypto watchdog, including the chairman of SUNACRIP, Joselit Ramírez, and the head of digital mining operations at SUNACRIP, Rajiv Mosqueda, who were allegedly part of former Vice President Tareck El Aissami’s mafia-like corruption squad. 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 Anticorruption Police is investigating links between the PDVSA-crypto plot and local bitcoin miners. Ramírez and Mosqueda were responsible for granting many of the licenses for the miners, so now many people in the bitcoin mining industry are under investigation to see which miners are indeed compliant with the Maduro administration’s crypto policies and to clear their potential links to the corruption scheme. It remains unclear when or if Venezuelan crypto companies will return to reliable operations. Bitcoin miners losing income every day their mining machines remain offline, and the nation’s bitcoin sector is losing out on millions of dollars worth of bitcoin business opportunities. Perhaps the Maduro administration will restructure SUNACRIP or create a new regulatory body entirely. Only time will tell.
