The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency conducted a raid on the Lonestar Dream bitcoin mining site in Pyote, Texas, Monday September 29, specifically targeting an ASIC repair center on site operated by Bitmain-affiliated ADW Tech, according to multiple sources who spoke to Blockspace on anonymity.
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Multiple government officials descended on the site, including agents from ICE, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS,) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), per one source Blockspace spoke to who was on-site during the raid.
The source said that, early at work Monday morning, he noticed an ICE helicopter patrolling the site before a cavalcade of black Tahoes arrived at the scene.
“Helicopters, snipers, armed men,” he told Blockspace. “[They asked] leading questions… ‘who does this, who does that.’”
Law enforcement officials took 12 or 13 individuals–about half of the repair company’s staff–from the site after they failed to demonstrate proper credentials. ICE took all Chinese nationals, many of whom had expired visas, the source claimed.
Pyote, Texas and West Texas in general is a watering hole for bitcoin miners. Genesis Digital Assets, for instance, operates a 195 MW bitcoin mine in Pyote, TX, but was not the target of the raid.
Poolin recently sold the 30 MW site Lonestar Dream in Pyote, Texas and includes on-site repair from ADW Tech, a Bitmain contractor and certified Antminer repair shop.
Trump administration and Bitcoin mining
This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has found itself at the intersection of domestic policy and bitcoin mining.
At the end of 2024, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency started sporadically holding then seizing ASIC miner imports at points of entry. In some cases, the CBP detained the hardware for months, imposing holding fees on affected companies without clear communication about why the ASICs were flagged and kept. The CBP held certain shipments well into 2025 after Trump took office until they started releasing them at the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2.
Read more: CBP ramps up ASIC miner crackdown with seizures, new import holds
Ostensibly, the CBP was searching for restricted AI chips on the ASIC miners’ control boards from Sophgo, a semiconductor company that shares Bitmain’s CEO, Micree Zhan, and which the U.S. The Department of Commerce is actively investigating sanctions violations.
ICE and ADW Tech did not respond to Blockspace’s request for comment. Please check back for updates.
