Former FBI agent Patrick Steven Yaroch pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering after stealing about $2.47 million in cryptocurrency using wallet credentials collected during FBI investigations, according to the Justice Department.
The department announced the plea on November 5, 2026. Yaroch, 37, of Ashburn, Virginia, entered his plea in federal court in Alexandria. He faces up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on March 4, 2027.
Credentials used in about 100 fraudulent transfers
According to prosecutors, Yaroch worked in the FBI’s Boston Division from 2017 to early 2025 on a squad investigating an unnamed “adversarial nation state.” He later moved to the bureau’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, where he had access to systems containing cryptocurrency credentials gathered during investigations.
Beginning no later than December 2024, he used that access to steal from wallets controlled by subjects of other investigations and nation-state actors, as well as at least one wallet the FBI had created for an operation.
Prosecutors said Yaroch made about 100 fraudulent transfers using credentials from 35 separate investigations. He then exchanged the stolen funds for other cryptocurrencies and moved them through additional transactions to conceal their origin. Some of the money went toward credit card bills, car payments and other loans.
The statement of facts accompanying his plea agreement said his actions compromised multiple FBI investigations into criminal groups and nation-state adversaries, along with sources and methods used in foreign intelligence collection.
Self-report initially understated the theft
Yaroch turned himself in after speaking with a former colleague at the Justice Department’s National Security Division on July 29. According to an FBI affidavit, he broke down during that conversation and said he had made “very poor decisions” involving cryptocurrency wallets.
He subsequently reported to FBI headquarters, saying he had become frustrated that the bureau “could not or would not act” against an adversary’s cryptocurrency accounts and had decided to “take matters into his own hands.”
At that point, Yaroch said he had made about 10 to 12 transfers worth less than $1 million—substantially below the amount and number of transfers later detailed in his plea. Decrypt previously reported on the charges in August.
Assets found and plans to move abroad
Agents searching Yaroch’s home two days after his July 29 disclosure seized a Trezor hardware wallet, three passports and a piece of paper containing seed phrases, according to the affidavit.
His Kraken account held about $188,600, mostly in U.S. dollars and USDC, with smaller holdings of Squid (QUID) and Bitcoin. Another $933,800 was in Suilend, a lending protocol on the Sui blockchain that he accessed through the Slush wallet app. Yaroch told agents he selected Suilend “simply because he liked that the logo was a water droplet.”
The affidavit said agents transferred about $925,000 from those accounts into government-controlled wallets. Roughly $165,600 held in U.S. dollars on Kraken could not be moved in the same way.
Prosecutors also said Yaroch had been planning a life abroad. He asked ChatGPT how to maximize investment profits and where to live in the European Union. After the chatbot suggested buying a vineyard in Portugal, he gave Portuguese lawyers power of attorney to obtain a tax identification number for him. He arranged to travel to Portugal in September.
Original reporting: Decrypt, published November 6, 2026, at 18:57:06 UTC+08:00.