24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the residents of the Santa Lucía neighborhood, in the town of Villarica, Paraguay, must endure the sound of Bitcoin miners who, at full speed, process the network on behalf of Bitfarms, one of the great companies in the emerging sector.
Six months ago, the community organized and filed a complaint with the country’s authorities. But without further response. It was not until this Wednesday, November 13, that the Prosecutor’s Office summoned the plaintiffs and made the decision to criminally charge Bitfarms.
In statements to CriptoNoticias, lawyer María Sol Arrúa said that the prosecution decided to charge the mining company for the crime of noise pollutiontypified in article 198 of the Penal Code.
Arrúa pointed out that the Public Ministry was able to prove that the company committed the crime after exceeding the permitted decibel limits, which are 65db, and that reached 77 dB due to mining operations.
In videos shared with the CriptoNoticias Editorial Team, the characteristic sound of the ASIC machines for mining Bitcoin can be clearly seen, resounding around the residential area of Santa Lucía, in Villarrica.
Case with several stages
The lawyer commented that the case has had several stages, and in May the situation was reported to the Municipality of Villarica, the entity that intervened, taking note in a book of minutes of the decibels of the mining operations.
“But then there was total silence on the part of the administration regarding the interventions,” said the lawyer, who criticized that the farm operates in a residential area, with neighbors living more than two kilometers from the data center also expressing their discomfort. .
Given the little intervention, the neighbors began an intermediation process, speaking directly with Bitfarms. The lawyer says that they spoke with the company, which promised to regulate the intensity.
“But the neighbors say that they were regulated for two or three days, then they began to increase the intensity and they realized that the agreement was not respected and there was no longer a response from the company,” he criticized.
He said that, in October, four months after the first complaint at the administrative level, the neighbors, after experiencing stress, health problems and damage to the infrastructure of their homes, reported the situation to the police station in the Santa Lucía neighborhood, where the located the farm. The police intervened and brought the case to the Paraguayan Prosecutor’s Office.which finally issued the indictment against Bitfarms.
“We have no problems with this area, if they solve it, each to their own. But under this price, no,” said lawyer Arrúa, and said that there are at least 500 families affected within 2 kilometers of the Bitcoin mining farm.
“There are many of us affected and that is non-negotiable. “We are talking about possible violations of human rights,” stated Arrúa.
CriptoNoticias attempted to contact Bitfarms for comments regarding the criminal charges in Paraguay, but at the time of writing this report, no response was received.
Bitfarms, which is one of the largest Bitcoin miners on the market, with 1.6 GW of installed power to operate in different farms around the worldhas been in Paraguay for several years. This was one of the first companies in the niche to take advantage of the benefits of the Guaraní country for this important digital activity.
As reported by CriptoNoticias, the mining company announced plans to expand throughout that nation. In July of last year, Bitfarms said it would open two mining farms after signing a purchase agreement for up to 150 MW of hydroelectric energy. A negotiation reached with the National Electrical Energy Administration (ANDE).
At that time, it was reported that one of the farms enabled it would be Villarica’swhich began construction since the third quarter of last year and which began operations shortly after.
