A former FBI agent has pleaded guilty to stealing roughly $2.47 million in cryptocurrency from assets the bureau controlled during active investigations. Patrick Steven Yaroch, 37, of Ashburn, Virginia, admitted to wire fraud and money laundering on November 5 in federal court in Virginia.
Prosecutors said Yaroch used credentials obtained through FBI investigative records to make approximately 100 unauthorized cryptocurrency transfers from wallets tied to 35 separate investigations. He had first confessed to a Justice Department colleague in late July, initially describing only 10 to 12 transfers into one wallet worth about $1 million, and said he had mixed stolen funds with personal trading gains. The plea confirmed the total was more than double that initial estimate.
Yaroch joined the FBI’s Boston Division in 2017 and worked there until early 2025, including on a team investigating an unnamed foreign adversary that NBC News identified as Russia. In February 2025 he moved to the Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, where he could access internal systems containing crypto wallet keys collected during cases. Authorities said no hacking was required: the keys were stored in an FBI system, and Yaroch copied them.
The Justice Department said Yaroch moved the stolen crypto through swaps and additional transactions to conceal its origin, then used some of the money to pay credit card bills, car payments and other loans. A search of his home found a Trezor hardware wallet, handwritten recovery phrases, a Portuguese legal document granting power of attorney, and three passports. Agents also found chats in which Yaroch asked ChatGPT what to do with roughly $1 million and how to live in an EU country; the chatbot suggested buying a vineyard in Portugal, and Yaroch later hired lawyers there to obtain a tax number.
Yaroch faces up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on March 4, 2027. His case is the second this year involving a government insider accused of diverting U.S.-controlled crypto, following the arrest of John “Lick” Daghita in March over more than $46 million allegedly taken from the U.S. Marshals Service.
