A former FBI agent who is alleged to have stolen about $1 million in cryptocurrency from an adversarial nation and made plans to move to Portugal with the help of an AI chatbot is scheduled to plead guilty on Thursday, according to court records.
Patrick Yaroch, 37, was a supervisor in the FBI’s counterintelligence and espionage division until his arrest this summer. Federal prosecutors in Virginia said in legal filings that he “misused his access to classified information to enrich himself” and “was taking steps to build a life in Portugal” — a destination he chose after asking ChatGPT for advice.
Yaroch is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, for a plea agreement hearing Thursday, according to an entry on the court’s calendar. Any plea deal must be approved by a judge before it is finalized.
Yaroch allegedly accessed classified records for cases that were not assigned to him and memorized passphrases that granted him access to digital cryptocurrency wallets belonging to an adversarial nation, transferring about $1 million to his own crypto account. The country is not named in court records.
He allegedly asked ChatGPT, “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?”
The artificial intelligence service recommended Portugal as the “top choice for your specific situation.” Yaroch traveled there in May without disclosing it to the federal government, gave power of attorney to Portuguese lawyers as he explored buying a vineyard, and had another trip booked for Portugal with his family when he was arrested in July.
Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia have charged Yaroch with interstate transportation of stolen money and receipt of stolen goods. According to court records, the former agent did not spend the allegedly pilfered crypto funds. He has not been accused of divulging classified information, and he agreed to plead guilty before an indictment.
A defense attorney for Yaroch, Kyle Boynton, said in a legal filing that Yaroch self-reported his activities and was “cooperative and contrite.”
“Based on the government’s own allegations against Mr. Yaroch, the government had zero knowledge of Mr. Yaroch’s alleged crimes until he, overcome with remorse, confessed to them,” Boynton wrote.
Prior to the plea agreement, the defense attorney had suggested in a court filing that top Justice Department officials had taken improper steps in converting what Yaroch assumed was an administrative investigation into a criminal probe.
In an August court filing, Boynton said that decision “was likely directed by senior political appointees of the FBI and the Justice Department in a possible effort to prioritize performative publicity over process.” He had also criticized the government’s moves to arrange “an unnecessary search warrant, a complaint, a SWAT team arrest, and unnecessary publicity that has resulted in the probable spillage of classified information into the news and likely further compromised a sensitive investigation.”
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria declined to comment Wednesday. Yaroch’s attorney declined to comment on what classified information may have been leaked as part of the case.
In addition to his job at FBI headquarters, Yaroch was detailed to work four days a week at an intelligence agency in Northern Virginia that is not identified in court records.
Yaroch told others that he was frustrated that the adversarial nation’s crypto funds were not being seized, and took matters into his own hands.
“Although the defendant initially claimed that he stole this cryptocurrency out of frustration, he should not be viewed as a selfless Robin Hoodesque figure,” federal prosecutors Kathleen Robeson and Russell Carlberg said in a legal filing. “The evidence is clear that the defendant planned to use this cryptocurrency for his own personal enrichment, just like any other fraudster.”
Warren Strobel contributed to this report.
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