Ex-Agent Pleads Guilty to $2.47 Million Crypto Theft

Patrick Steven Yaroch, a 37-year-old former federal agent from Ashburn, Virginia, pleaded guilty on Thursday to money laundering and wire fraud in an Alexandria federal court. The guilty plea detailed the theft of digital assets using wallet credentials gathered during official investigations.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles accepted the plea for illicit transfers totaling $2,474,380.66. Yaroch faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, with a sentencing hearing scheduled for March 4, 2027.

System Access and Transfers

From 2017 through early 2025, Yaroch served in the FBI Boston Division focusing on adversarial nation-states. He subsequently worked at the bureau's Counterintelligence and Espionage Division headquarters from February 2025 until July 31, 2026. This headquarters position granted him access to internal systems that stored cryptocurrency credentials seized as evidence.

According to prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Yaroch began using this access no later than December 2024. He executed roughly 100 fraudulent transfers associated with 35 separate investigations. The digital assets were drained from wallets belonging to investigation subjects, nation-state adversaries, and at least one wallet directly created for an FBI operation.

After moving the funds into his own wallets, Yaroch swapped the stolen coins for other digital assets and conducted further transactions to obscure their ownership and source. Between November 25, 2025, and January 13, 2026, he transferred about $93,082 into a personal account, shuffling the money to pay off credit cards, loans, and car payments.

Relocation Plans and Discovery

Court documents also outlined preparations for relocating overseas. As noted by FOX 5 DC citing a U.S. Attorney’s Office release, Yaroch consulted the ChatGPT chatbot regarding European Union residency and maximizing investment returns. After the chatbot recommended buying a Portuguese vineyard, Yaroch granted power of attorney to lawyers in Portugal on June 15, 2026. This authorized them to register him with the Portuguese Tax and Customs Authority, secure a tax identification number, and obtain passwords for a finance portal. He had scheduled travel to Portugal for September 2026.

The Justice Department Office of the Inspector General officially flagged the case in August following Yaroch's arrest on a criminal complaint. Prior to that, on July 29, 2026, Yaroch had self-reported about 10 transfers totaling roughly $1 million to two department employees, though the final plea figure revealed a much larger theft.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that the conduct compromised multiple ongoing investigations into criminal groups and nation-state adversaries, exposing foreign intelligence collection methods. According to the agreed statement of facts, the theft “deprived FBI employees of their ability to carry out their functions to protect public safety and national security.”

The case, designated 1:26-CR-208, comes amid a wider White House crackdown on digital asset crimes, following bureau tallies showing U.S. crypto fraud losses exceeded $11 billion in 2025.