Ex-FBI agent pleads guilty to stealing $2.47M in crypto

Patrick Steven Yaroch, a former FBI supervisory special agent, pleaded guilty on November 6, 2026, to wire fraud and money laundering after stealing $2,474,380.66 in cryptocurrency using wallet credentials gathered in FBI investigations, according to Crypto Briefing. The 37-year-old, of Ashburn, Virginia, entered the pleas in federal court in Alexandria before U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, Bitcoin Magazine reported.

Prosecutors said Yaroch made roughly 100 unauthorized transfers tied to 35 separate FBI investigations, drawing on wallets controlled by investigation subjects, foreign adversaries and at least one wallet the bureau itself had created for an operation. The thefts began no later than December 2024 and continued until his arrest in late July 2026.

Key facts

• Yaroch pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering; the agreed loss figure is $2,474,380.66.
• The scheme involved about 100 transfers linked to 35 FBI investigations, including funds belonging to at least 10 crime victims.
• Investigators recovered about $188,600 held on Kraken and around $933,800 from the Suilend lending protocol, plus a Trezor hardware wallet and seed phrases.
• Yaroch worked in the FBI Boston Division from 2017 to early 2025, then moved to the Counterintelligence and Espionage Division in February 2025; the FBI terminated him on July 31, 2026.
• Sentencing is set for March 4, 2027; he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

How the credentials became cash

According to the plea papers, Yaroch searched investigative records for cryptocurrency credentials, memorized recovery information and used seed phrases — the master keys that recreate a wallet — to move funds without authorization. He then swapped the stolen crypto into other digital assets and ran further transactions meant to obscure its origin and ownership.

Between November 25, 2025, and January 13, 2026, he moved about $93,082 into one of his accounts and shuffled funds among others to cover debts including credit cards, car payments and loans, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said.

The reports differ on how the case unfolded. The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General flagged the matter in August after Yaroch’s arrest on a criminal complaint, which described about 10 transfers totaling roughly $1 million and noted that he self-reported the activity to two department employees on July 29, 2026. The plea figures are larger. crypto.news reported that the earlier investigation recovered approximately $925,000 in cryptocurrency from accounts associated with Yaroch.

Court documents also show Yaroch consulted ChatGPT about investment returns and where to live in the European Union. After the chatbot suggested buying a vineyard in Portugal, he gave Portuguese lawyers a power of attorney on June 15, 2026, to register him with the tax authority, obtain a tax identification number and collect credentials for his finance portal, and he arranged travel to Portugal for September 2026. He was arrested in July.

Why it matters

The plea agreement states that Yaroch’s conduct compromised multiple FBI investigations into criminal groups and nation-state adversaries, and compromised sources and methods used in foreign intelligence collection and criminal cases. It also, the filing says, deprived FBI employees of their ability to carry out their functions to protect public safety and national security.

For agencies handling seized digital assets, the case points to a gap between custody of physical evidence and custody of seed phrases: whoever holds the words controls the wallet. The recovery effort also shows how centralized exchanges and DeFi protocols become choke points where stolen funds can be identified and frozen. The gap between the stolen total and the roughly $1.12 million recovered from Kraken and Suilend will shape how much victims ultimately get back.

What to watch

Sentencing before Judge Giles on March 4, 2027, will address how the court weighs Yaroch’s July 2026 self-report against the $2.47 million plea figure. Whether authorities trace any additional assets is the other open question.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Theophani K. Stamos and Daniel S. Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence Division, announced the plea. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathleen Robeson and Russell Carlberg are prosecuting, with help from the Justice Department’s National Security Cyber Section and the inspector general’s Mid-Atlantic region. The case is 1:26-CR-208.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Crypto markets are volatile and uncertain.

Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment, financial or trading advice. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile. Always do your own research.

Sources: Crypto Briefing, Bitcoin Magazine, crypto.news