A former FBI counterintelligence agent admitted Thursday to stealing more than $2.4 million in cryptocurrency from adversarial nations, victims of financial crimes and others as he made plans for a new life in Portugal.
The former agent, Patrick Yaroch, was a supervisor in the FBI’s counterintelligence and espionage division until his arrest this summer. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money-laundering in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, and faces a maximum prison term of 20 years at his sentencing, set for March.
Federal prosecutors said Yaroch routinely rifled through classified records for cases he was not assigned to, obtaining the security credentials he needed to access the crypto accounts of state actors for two adversarial nations, as well as crypto holdings connected to the subjects of 35 separate FBI investigations.
Some of the funds Yaroch stole belonged to at least 10 victims of financial crimes that the FBI was investigating, according to documents filed with his guilty plea. The two adversarial nations are not named in public court records.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Robeson said in court that Yaroch’s thefts were “indiscriminate” — one fraudulent transfer was for 81 cents, another for more than $580,000 — and that he would “typically exchange the stolen cryptocurrency for a different type” as part of an elaborate scheme to cover his tracks.
In court records, Yaroch admitted to “approximately 100” fraudulent transactions over a year-and-a-half period ending in July. He acknowledged using a portion of the $2.4 million in proceeds to pay off mounting personal debts as he made plans to retire to Portugal.
“If you had a bucket of money (around $1 million) and you wanted to leave the USA and become a resident or citizen of an EU country, what would you do?” he asked ChatGPT.
The AI chatbot recommended he purchase a Portuguese vineyard, citing his “young family. a goal of potentially retiring around 40. and a clear interest in eventually building a slower-living vineyard/agricultural lifestyle in places like Cilento or Portugal’s Dão region.”
Yaroch, 37, was arrested in late July after self-reporting his activities to the FBI and Justice Department. His defense attorney described him in a court filing as “cooperative and contrite.” Prosecutors said he was cooperative “at times.”
The government initially charged Yaroch with lesser offenses punishable by up to 10 years in prison and said in its initial charging documents that Yaroch was suspected of stealing about $1 million in crypto funds from one adversarial nation.
The amounts and victims then grew as the investigation unfolded — and prosecutors agreed to a plea deal premised on more serious charges that carry a 20-year maximum prison sentence.
Yaroch’s attorney, Kyle Boynton, did not respond to a request for comment after the hearing.
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