Summary
Patrick Steven Yaroch, 37, a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent in the Counterintelligence and Espionage Division at FBI Headquarters, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. He admitted stealing more than $2.4 million in cryptocurrency from wallets controlled by nation-state hackers and theft victims. He faces up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for March.
What Happened
Yaroch used his seniority to reach FBI systems that held the codes and passwords needed to move funds. Starting in December 2024, he made 100 transfers from 79 wallets. Those wallets were tied to 35 FBI investigations. The targets included at least two adversarial nations and 10 crime victims. Individual transfers ranged from 81 cents to more than $580,000.
Prosecutors said he had hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, loans, and car payments, and used the stolen funds to pay off several large loans. Investigators also found ChatGPT conversations in which he planned to buy a vineyard in Portugal and retire. He had started legal arrangements there and bought plane tickets for his family for September.
In July, he confessed to a Department of Justice employee he knew from a previous job. Prosecutors said the shame was "eating him up inside."
Impact
Prosecutors said Yaroch's misuse of the credentials compromised multiple FBI investigations and exposed sources and methods to the people who controlled the wallets. Moving funds out of seized or monitored wallets can tip off the owners that law enforcement has access, and it undermines later attribution and forfeiture efforts.
Lessons for Defenders
- Insider risk applies to custodians of seized assets. Anyone with access to private keys or recovery material is a high-value insider target, whatever their employer.
- Enforce dual control. Moves of high-value assets should need two independent approvers and be logged outside the control of either.
- Monitor wallet and key access. Alert on unusual access to credential stores, even from senior staff.
- Separate duties. The same person should not be able to both hold access and move funds without review.
- Audit regularly. Reconcile custody holdings against case records on a fixed schedule. This case ran for months before discovery and ended only with a confession.
Sources
- The Record, "FBI agent pleads guilty to stealing from nation-state hackers" (November 6, 2026)