A former FBI agent has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering after using cryptocurrency credentials available through his job to steal approximately $2.47 million, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Patrick Steven Yaroch, 37, of Ashburn, Virginia, entered the plea on November 5. Prosecutors said he conducted roughly 100 fraudulent transfers using credentials associated with 35 separate FBI investigations. Sentencing is scheduled for March 4, 2027. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, with the sentence to be determined by the court after consideration of the applicable guidelines and other statutory factors.

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Investigative access became a route to theft

Yaroch worked in the FBI’s Boston Division from 2017 through early 2025 and then in its Counterintelligence and Espionage Division from February 2025 until July 31, 2026. That work gave him access to systems holding cryptocurrency credentials gathered during investigations, the Justice Department said.

The scheme began no later than December 2024. The affected wallets included those belonging to subjects of other investigations and adversarial nation-state actors, as well as at least one wallet established by the FBI for an operation. Prosecutors put the fraudulent proceeds at $2,474,380.66.

After moving the assets, Yaroch exchanged them for other cryptocurrencies and made further transactions intended to conceal their source and ownership. The department said he moved approximately $93,082 into one account between November 25, 2025, and January 13, 2026, then used transfers between accounts to pay debts, including credit-card and vehicle obligations.

Plea gives a fuller accounting

Unchained’s November 6 review compared the plea announcement with an earlier FBI affidavit. It reported that Yaroch initially described approximately 10 transfers and a personal wallet holding about $1 million. The later plea figures are substantially larger. The two accounts concern different stages of the case, so the earlier amount should not be substituted for the admitted proceeds.

The Justice Department said the agreed statement of facts acknowledged damage to multiple investigations involving criminal groups and foreign adversaries, along with compromised FBI sources and methods. The case therefore extends beyond the dollar value of the stolen digital assets.

Sentencing remains ahead

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles accepted the plea. The prosecution is proceeding under case number 1:26-CR-208 in the Eastern District of Virginia. A guilty plea has been entered, but a prison term has not yet been imposed.

The admitted conduct also illustrates an operational security problem: access to wallet credentials can enable asset transfers even without breaking a blockchain’s cryptography. Here, the documented mechanism was misuse of investigative access. The court’s next major scheduled step is sentencing, rather than a new determination of whether Yaroch admitted the charged conduct.

Prepared with AI assistance. The lead image is an AI-generated conceptual illustration, not a photograph of an actual event.