Former FBI Supervisor Pleads Guilty to Stealing $2.47 Million in Cryptocurrency from FBI Investigations
Patrick Steven Yaroch, a 37-year-old former FBI supervisor, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. He stole about $2.47 million in cryptocurrency from wallets linked to FBI investigations. He entered the guilty plea on November 5, 2026, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
How the theft worked
According to the FBI’s search affidavit, Yaroch accessed FBI systems that stored the seed phrases of cryptocurrency wallets belonging to investigation subjects, and memorized them. A seed phrase is a series of words, usually 12 or 24, that restores access to a cryptocurrency wallet; anyone who has it can potentially control the funds.
Starting no later than December 2024, Yaroch made about 100 transfers using credentials tied to 35 separate investigations. The targeted wallets belonged to people under FBI investigation, including adversarial nation-state actors. He moved the funds to a personal wallet on his own device, then swapped the assets into other currencies and made further transactions to hide where they came from. According to the DOJ, his actions compromised multiple investigations.
Motive and use of the funds
The affidavit says Yaroch justified his actions as frustration that the FBI was not moving quickly enough against the wallets’ criminal owners, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. However, the DOJ says he also used some of the proceeds to pay personal debts, including credit cards, car payments, and other loans. The affidavit also shows he asked ChatGPT how to invest a million dollars and where to live in Europe. After it suggested Portugal, he began setting up a life there.
Self-reporting and arrest
According to the affidavit, Yaroch confessed to a former DOJ colleague, saying his actions were “eating him up inside.” The colleague urged him to self-report, and he did. The FBI placed him on leave and fired him two days later. Agents then searched his home with a warrant and seized assets, including his phone, which had access to a Kraken cryptocurrency account, and a piece of paper containing the seed phrases for his own wallet.
A recurring pattern
This is not the first time a federal agent has stolen cryptocurrency held as evidence:
- December 2024: Former Secret Service agent Anthony Joseph Evans pleaded guilty to stealing cryptocurrency worth $56,000 from a hardware wallet held in the agency’s secure evidence vault.
- 2015: Former Secret Service agent Shaun W. Bridges pleaded guilty to money laundering and obstruction of justice after stealing bitcoin during the Silk Road investigation. He used another person’s administrator account to reset users’ passwords and move bitcoin into a wallet he controlled. The bitcoin was worth about $350,000 at the time; he later sold it for $820,000.
Why it matters: the insider threat
This case shows how dangerous a trusted insider with privileged access can be. Seed phrases stored in readable form in internal systems gave Yaroch everything he needed: he didn’t have to steal a device or bypass technical controls, only remember a list of words. Cryptocurrency also moves instantly and is hard to reverse, so stolen funds can be laundered quickly.
