ICE raids Texas Bitcoin mining site tied to Bitmain in chip export control probe

Federal agents on Monday raided the Lonestar Dream bitcoin mining site in Pyote, Texas, going straight for an ASIC repair center run by Bitmain-affiliated ADW Tech, according to a report from Blockspace. The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation unfolded at sunrise and zeroed in on the contractor that keeps Antminer rigs running at the 30 MW site, recently sold by Poolin. Witnesses allegedly said the raid looked like a war scene. “Helicopters, snipers, armed men,” one source told Blockspace while describing an ICE helicopter circling above before “a cavalcade of black Tahoes arrived at the scene.” He added agents asked “leading questions… ‘who does this, who does that.’” Multiple agencies were present: ICE, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) all took part, according to a person on site. Agents detain ADW Tech staff and seize documents Law enforcement removed 12 or 13 workers, roughly half the repair shop staff, from the Pyote facility after they failed to show proper credentials. The same source said ICE targeted Chinese nationals and took everyone with expired visas. The raid did not affect other local operators such as Genesis Digital Assets, which runs a 195 MW bitcoin mine in Pyote but was not a subject of this action. ADW Tech is a Bitmain contractor and certified Antminer repair shop embedded within Lonestar Dream. The company’s presence highlights how West Texas has become a hub for mining, drawing big names with cheap power and wide land. Poolin’s recent sale of the site still left ADW Tech doing the repair work, and that is where federal scrutiny landed. The action comes as Bitmain-linked repair centers in the U.S. face rising government attention. This raid connects with a longer story involving the Trump administration’s handling of mining hardware imports. At the end of 2024, CBP began sporadically holding and seizing ASIC miner shipments at U.S. ports, sometimes keeping them for months and charging holding fees without explaining the flags. Several shipments stayed detained into 2025 after Trump took office and only began to be released by late Q1 and early Q2. Officials said they were looking for restricted AI chips on ASIC miners’ control boards from Sophgo, a semiconductor company that shares Bitmain CEO Micree Zhan. The U.S. Department of Commerce is actively investigating possible sanctions violations by Sophgo, which ties directly to why these miners and repair hubs are now under heavy federal focus. Join Bybit now and claim a $50 bonus in minutes