FBI Agent Charged with Stealing $925K in Cryptocurrency by Memorizing Seed Phrases

A supervisory FBI counterintelligence agent has been charged with stealing nearly $1 million in cryptocurrency from Russian-linked accounts that his own bureau was monitoring.

Patrick Steven Yaroch, 41, of Ashburn, Virginia, allegedly memorized the wallet recovery phrases from FBI intelligence systems and walked out of the building with them in his head.

The theft went undetected because no file was copied, no device was smuggled out, and no network alert fired. The words simply left the screen and entered Yaroch's memory.

Yaroch had Top Secret/SCI clearance and access to sensitive compartmented information. He worked on a national security squad in Boston before moving to a supervisory role at FBI headquarters in Washington.