Rio de Janeiro Civil Police launched an operation focusing on a Comando Vermelho operational nucleus and located a crypto mining setup with roughly 30 computer systems organized on cabinets in a room on an apparently deserted lot.
The farm drew energy from a clandestine electrical connection operating straight from a utility pole. The machines carried high-capacity followers and exhaust methods, together with remote-monitoring {hardware}.
As G1 reported, police are investigating whether or not the faction used the construction for cash motion or laundering.
The bodily configuration already describes the likelihood {that a} felony group with territorial management can convert stolen electrical energy into moveable digital worth.
Territorial management gives entry to area and utilities, a clandestine electrical energy connection eliminates the first working value, and the mining output converts straight into moveable worth.
Stolen electrical energy is the load-bearing component of that mannequin, since mining solely makes financial sense when electrical energy is reasonable, backed, or free.
Cambridge’s Bitcoin Electrical energy Consumption Index methodology identifies electrical energy as certainly one of mining’s highest working prices. Brazil’s electrical energy regulator, ANEEL, reported that power theft and different non-technical losses value the nation roughly $2 billion in 2024, with Rio de Janeiro among the many states recording the best ranges of energy theft.
At 1.5 kilowatts per machine, 30 computer systems would draw about 45 kilowatts, consuming about 32,400 kilowatt-hours per thirty days. At $0.20 per kilowatt-hour, that’s $6,400 in prevented month-to-month electrical energy prices, an actual working benefit delivered with out fee.
The unknowns are the {hardware} kind, the coin mined, the hash price, and whether or not the crypto was ever cashed out. Stolen electrical energy removes certainly one of mining’s highest variable prices no matter these unknowns.
Comando Vermelho’s infrastructure evolution
The UK Residence Workplace identifies Comando Vermelho as certainly one of Brazil’s two largest organized felony teams alongside PCC, with territorial attain throughout city favelas, border areas, and the Amazon.
The group originated in Rio’s jail system within the late Nineteen Seventies, increasing into worldwide cocaine trafficking and management of working-class neighborhoods the place armed teams usually handle primary providers, together with fuel, web, and transportation.
AP reported in 2025 that Rio police accused Comando Vermelho of coercing over 300 motorbike drivers into utilizing a clandestine ride-hailing app in Vila Kennedy, producing as much as $200,000 per thirty days, with income allegedly funneled by way of shell corporations to finance drug trafficking.
On Might 4, native information Folha reported that CV had intensified its presence in unlawful gold mining close to Brazil’s border with Peru, treating gold as a worthwhile and secure various to cocaine and utilizing the exercise for funding and cash laundering.
ActivityControlled resourceRevenue logicWhy it mattersDrug traffickingTerritory, armed management, routesTraditional illicit commodity flowCore historic businessClandestine ride-hailing appLocal transport networksFees from coerced drivers / shell-company flowsShows management over city servicesIllegal gold miningLand, extraction zones, cross-border accessGold as funding and laundering vehicleShows transfer into commoditiesCrypto mining setupSpace, stolen electrical energy, hardwareConverts unpaid energy into digital valueShows attainable transfer into crypto manufacturing
Every exercise monetizes territory and managed assets as a standalone income line, with transaction flows that run outdoors the cash-and-drugs channels investigators have traditionally focused.
The Rio findings additionally sharpen the present image of crypto crime in Brazil.
Folha reported on Might 9 that Brazil’s Federal Police seized $14 million in crypto in 2025, with seized property showing throughout drug trafficking, cash laundering, human rights violations, environmental crimes, and on-line fraud.
On Might 12, a nationwide operation spanning 16 states deployed 165 search-and-seizure warrants and 71 arrest warrants targeted on drug trafficking, felony factions, and cash laundering.
Chainalysis’ 2026 Crypto Crime Report described the illicit on-chain panorama as having constructed large-scale infrastructure to assist transnational felony networks procure items and launder crypto.
A Malaysian comparability gives the stolen energy mannequin with international context, as reviews have famous that Malaysia’s nationwide utility, Tenaga Nasional, misplaced greater than $1 billion to unlawful energy use by crypto miners between 2020 and August 2025.
Malaysian authorities responded with raids, good meters, and databases of suspicious premises.
The place the grid path leads
Within the bull case, police hyperlink the setup to faction funds, find pockets addresses or distant operators related to CV management, and the case turns into the primary documented instance of a serious Brazilian felony faction operating crypto manufacturing as a proper income line.
The investigative perimeter would then have to broaden to incorporate {hardware} procurement, energy theft, cooling tools, and utility entry.
ScenarioWhat investigators findWhat it might meanStory implicationBull caseWallets, distant operators or monetary hyperlinks tied to CV leadershipCrypto mining turns into a part of faction financeMajor Brazilian faction could also be utilizing crypto manufacturing as a income lineBase caseLocal operators used CV-controlled territory however with weak central linksTerritorial management enabled the setup indirectlyStill reveals how gang territory can shelter crypto infrastructureBear caseIndependent operators, no faction pockets path, restricted revenueOpportunistic energy theft, not faction strategyStory turns into an area energy-theft caseBlack-swan caseMultiple farms, coordinated {hardware} purchases, alternate accounts or cross-border cash-outReplicable felony mining infrastructurePolice may have to observe grids as carefully as blockchains
Within the bear case, investigators establish unbiased operators who opportunistically used a CV-controlled space, discover no faction pockets path, and the setup generates too little income to perform as a viable operation.
Investigators seize the machines, operators face energy-theft expenses, and the case closes as an area footnote.
The configuration of clandestine energy, distant monitoring, an deserted lot, and a managed neighborhood serves as a replicable mannequin for anybody with entry to a gang-controlled grid.
The ability line reveals that organized crime can construct crypto-production infrastructure from territorial management, stolen electrical energy, and off-the-shelf {hardware}, forcing investigators to look at the grid as carefully as they watch the blockchain.
