A former FBI agent has admitted to stealing nearly $2.5 million in cryptocurrency from the digital wallets of fraud victims and nation-state hackers who were under FBI investigation. Patrick Steven Yaroch, 37, pleaded guilty on Thursday to wire fraud and money laundering charges. The Justice Department said his thefts touched 35 separate FBI investigations and compromised sources and methods used in criminal probes and foreign intelligence collection.
Yaroch worked on a national security investigative squad at the FBI Boston Division from 2017 to 2025, then served as a supervisory special agent in the FBI Headquarters Counterintelligence and Espionage Division from February 2025 to July 2026. He was arrested at his home on July 31 after turning himself in to the Justice Department's National Security Division and FBI Headquarters employees on July 29. The FBI placed him on administrative leave on July 29 and fired him on July 31, 2026.
Prosecutors said Yaroch pulled passphrases from the FBI's case management systems and another platform used to share investigative data, then used them to move funds out of victim and suspect wallets into accounts he controlled. He then tried to launder the money by swapping it into other cryptocurrencies. According to the Justice Department, he made roughly 100 fraudulent transfers tied to the 35 investigations and took in about $2,474,380.66. Between Nov. 25, 2025, and Jan. 13, 2026, he moved about $93,082 into one account and then shifted it among his other accounts, sending payments to cover credit cards, car payments and other loans.
Court documents also showed Yaroch was preparing to relocate to Portugal with his family in early September, holding flight tickets to Lisbon and power-of-attorney paperwork for two Portuguese lawyers to obtain a tax identification number. He had asked ChatGPT where to live in the European Union, describing a goal of potentially retiring around age 40 and eventually building a slower-living vineyard or agricultural lifestyle.
The case has implications for how US law enforcement stores and shares sensitive investigative data. Prosecutors said Yaroch's conduct damaged multiple investigations involving both nation-state adversaries and criminal groups, along with FBI sources and methods. He is set to be sentenced on March 4 and faces up to 20 years on the wire fraud charge and up to another 20 years on the money laundering charge.
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