FBI Agent Charged with Stealing Nearly $1M in Cryptocurrency
A high-ranking FBI counterintelligence agent has been charged with stealing nearly $1 million in cryptocurrency from wallets tied to an adversarial nation. Patrick Yaroch, a supervisory agent at the Boston division, used passphrases he obtained during an active investigation to move the funds across a dozen transfers between late 2024 and early 2025.
Yaroch's scheme was discovered when agents searched his Virginia home, where they found months of ChatGPT conversations about investing the money and relocating to Europe. He had even booked a round-trip flight to Portugal for September and signed power-of-attorney paperwork for two Portuguese lawyers before confessing to a Justice Department employee.
This case highlights the vulnerability of cryptocurrency held in third-party custody, where a single passphrase can be enough to move funds out. U.S. agencies have billions of dollars in seized digital assets under their control, and this incident raises concerns about the safety of these assets.