Puebla

Is it real or real fake? You play along as well as you're listening.

Sal, [risas] si puedes, Puebla.

Sal si puedes, Puebla.

Prima Vane, real or real fake?

Sal si puedes, Puebla.

[risas] I'm gonna say real.

Real hasta la muerte.

[risas]

You might want to apply that mutatis mutandis to what's going on between America and Canada.

But for those who don't remember, Mexico's election is now the bloodiest in its modern history after a candidate running for local office in central state of Puebla was murdered Friday, taking the number of assassinated candidates to 37 ahead of Sunday's vote.

He was a candidate, Jorge Huerta Cabrera, for the CDNA, gunned down in an attack, the police prosecutor's office say.

The killing takes the number of assassinated candidates in the 2024 election to 37, one more than in 2021 when it was 36 that were killed, according to data from the security.

From Mexico City, the world's TBS Isaiah reports.

Deep in the mountains of Puebla, south of Mexico City, there is a narrow rural road where few people pass by.

But local officials discovered something unusual.

Loud machines working and making noise day and night.

Francisco Sánchez is Puebla's Secretary of Security.

We identified a farm where this cryptocurrency activity took place.

At a press conference, Sanchez said authorities found a clandestine cryptocurrency mine in the area with more than a thousand computers.

So there is that side that you can make profits, but also if you have like money from field trafficking, from extortion, from transnational drug trafficking, you can put it into crypto and you're laundering those profits.

Well, some interesting stuff this week, and I know you've been covering it for us on Payment Expert.

So somewhere, I believe, in the Puebla Mountains of central Mexico...

Some police forces discovered, I guess, a hidden crypto mining farm and that was wired straight into a hydroelectric dam and was essentially stealing all the power to run this, I suppose, this illegal crypto farm.

It's one of a number of farms that have actually been found by local authorities in Mexico in the past.

So tell us a bit about this story, I guess, and how they've managed to siphon away power and what they're using this, I suppose it's for money laundering purposes.

Yeah, so pretty much like you said, authorities have found this farm which is linked to the cartel they believe, although they haven't actually publicly announced who is behind it.

It was found in the Sierra Norte region in Puebla.

and they seized around 300 graphics processing units.

Sí.

Bueno, pues el día de hoy estamos hablando sobre un evento que pasa cada año aquí en Cholula, Puebla, que es el lugar en donde nosotros vivimos, y este evento tiene como nombre o se le conoce como el Trueque de Cholula.

Sí, querías mucho ir y sonaba superinteresante.

¿Qué es esto? ¿Qué es el Trueque de Cholula?

Ajá.

Mhm.

Pero el gobierno de Puebla relaciona este día con, eh, Quetzalcóatl también, como que tiene tradiciones o que tiene que ver más bien con las celebraciones de Quetzalcóatl, que pues era la serpiente dios de los aztecas.

La serpiente emplumada.

Hidden Mexican Crypto Farm Shines a Light on the Cartels Nestled in the lush green mountains of central Mexico, next to a sparsely traveled gravel road, few people had reason to wander close enough to hear the loud mechanical whirring of a clandestine cryptocurrency farm.

What led police to the ramshackle building, suspected of mining virtual coins to launder illicit funds, was not only the noise, but the vast amount of electricity needed to power and cool hundreds of specialized computing units at levels far surpassing the needs of the small communities scattered around the Sierra Norte region of Puebla State.

Crypto mining, which uses powerful computers to generate virtual assets like Bitcoin, represents a new frontier in Mexico's fight against organized criminal groups, which have extended their reach beyond drug trafficking and extortion into the murkier realm of financial crime.

In Puebla, authorities discovered 300 graphics processing units , 80 medium-voltage terminals and eight satellite antennae, all geared to compete against millions of other machines to solve puzzles and create valuable new crypto coins.

This killer's story begins on the 1st of August, 1960.

Angel Resendiz was born in the state of Puebla in the east of Mexico.

Little is known about his childhood, but during his eventual trial, Resendiz spoke to forensic psychologist Ramon Laval about his early years south of the border.

Angel Resendez grew up in a dysfunctional family.