Patrick Steven Yaroch, a former FBI agent, pleaded guilty on Thursday to wire fraud and money laundering in connection with the theft of approximately $2.47 million in cryptocurrency. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced the plea in a press release. Yaroch, 37, of Ashburn, Virginia, entered his plea in federal court in Alexandria after using FBI-held wallet credentials from 35 investigations to take funds the bureau held as part of its casework.

Each count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. A judge is scheduled to sentence Yaroch on March 4, 2027.

The guilty plea drew broad attention on X:

EX-FBI AGENT PLEADS GUILTY TO STEALING $2.47 MILLION IN CRYPTO FROM INVESTIGATIONS Patrick Steven Yaroch, 37, of Ashburn, Virginia, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in federal court in Alexandria after using FBI-held wallet credentials from 35 investigations to… pic.twitter.com/wxXiVnh1Os

— Bitcoin News (@BitcoinNewsCom) November 7, 2026

How the Thefts Worked

Court documents say Yaroch's conduct began no later than December 2024, when he started searching FBI databases — some of them classified — for cryptocurrency credentials tied to open cases. He used the credentials he found to make about 100 transfers, drawing money from at least 79 wallets linked to 35 FBI investigations. The breach also illustrates how credentials stored in agency systems can become a single point of exposure, allowing one insider to reach holdings from dozens of unrelated cases at once.

Most of the wallets belonged to people under investigation. Two of them were controlled by adversarial nation states. The filing does not name the countries, but NBC News reported in August, citing two sources, that one of them was Russia.

Yaroch's targets were not limited to investigative subjects. He also took money from at least 10 wallets that belonged to crime victims, as well as from one wallet the FBI had funded for an operation. The filing describes his conduct as "indiscriminate." Individual thefts ranged from 81 cents to more than $580,000, and after each theft he checked FBI systems to see whether anyone had noticed.

The activity described in court documents continued into 2026.

Yaroch joined the FBI's Boston Division in 2017. From February 2025 to July 31, 2026, he served as a supervisory special agent in the Counterintelligence and Espionage Division at FBI headquarters.

Debts, ChatGPT and a Vineyard

Prosecutors say the thefts were motivated by debt. Before they began, Yaroch had taken out more than $100,000 in loans in 2024 and owed more than $45,000 on credit cards, and prosecutors say he used the stolen funds to pay down what he owed.

In one instance described in the filing, Yaroch used credentials from a case file on Nov. 6, 2025, to empty two wallets into his own bitcoin wallet. He then ran the funds through a swap service with privacy features, converted some of the money into Monero and then Solana, and moved it through a Sui wallet to a Kraken account. Between Nov. 25, 2025, and Jan. 13, 2026, he moved about $93,082 to a TD Bank account, using roughly $30,176 to pay down credit cards and $20,000 toward a Lexus.

The filing also details Yaroch's plans to relocate overseas. On June 4, he asked ChatGPT what it would do with about $1 million if it wanted to move to a European Union country. The conversation referenced his wife and child and his interest in a 2-5 hectare estate and "age-worthy red wine," and the chatbot named Portugal as its top choice. On June 15, he gave two Portuguese lawyers power of attorney to register him with the country's tax authority. He also arranged a September trip tied to buying a vineyard.

Plea Terms and Forfeiture

Under the plea agreement, Yaroch must pay at least $2.4 million in restitution and faces a forfeiture judgment of at least $2.4 million. He agreed to give up 17,990.67 USDC and about 1.38 million SUI seized on July 31, together worth roughly $1.2 million, along with the contents of his TD Bank, Charles Schwab, Kraken and BloFin accounts. The seized digital assets amount to roughly half of that obligation. He acknowledged that the full proceeds of the thefts "are not available."

Yaroch also agreed to be interviewed by Justice Department and FBI officials. Any money he earns from books, films, articles or interviews about his case will go to the U.S. government, and he must submit any such work to the FBI for review before publication.

Firing and Pretrial Release

The Block reported in August that the FBI fired Yaroch on July 31, the same day he was charged with transporting and receiving stolen money. According to the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General, Yaroch had reported himself to two department employees on July 29.

Prosecutors asked to keep him jailed before trial, citing about $160,000 still held on Kraken and possible Espionage Act charges that were never filed. Judge Anthony Trenga instead ordered him released on a $50,000 bond with location monitoring.

Related Case

In a separate matter, a federal grand jury indicted John Daghita on 15 counts in March over the alleged theft of more than $46 million in cryptocurrency from the U.S. Marshals Service. His arraignment is set for Nov. 12 in Alexandria. Both cases involve cryptocurrency held by federal agencies — the FBI in Yaroch's and the U.S. Marshals Service in Daghita's — underscoring the custody responsibilities agencies take on as digital assets move through criminal investigations.