Patrick Steven Yaroch, an FBI agent with top secret security clearance, was fired from his job last week owing to a crypto theft scandal. On Monday, the ex-Supervisory Special Agent with the FBI was charged with stealing around $1 million in crypto assets from ongoing investigations into an unnamed foreign adversary.
As investigators dug deeper into Yaroch’s intentions with the stolen crypto, a September trip to Portugal came to light. While Yaroch reportedly claimed the trip was planned with family to visit friends, the law enforcement officials on the case had reasons to believe that he was planning to move the funds overseas.
From hand-written crypto wallet seed phrases to a hardware wallet from Trezor and a Kraken account with over $188,000 in BTC, USDC, and other altcoins — investigators recovered multiple links tying Yaroch to the stolen funds.
As per reports, Yaroch confessed to the theft to a colleague at the FBI headquarers located in Washington D.C. on July 28.
His web history, furthermore, indicated that he was looking to understand a investment options for a million dollar to “maximize profit and return”. Yaroch also used ChatGPT to look up how somebody from the U.S. could get a European residency.
Yaroch worked in the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division. He reportedly siphoned these crypto assets into his own wallets in around ten transfers between early 2025 and July 2026.
His escape plan included tapping job opportunities in Greece as well, investigators found during the probe.
The recovered physical evidence, digital trails, and Yaroch’s own confession led to his arrest on July 31, 2026. For now, his punishment is yet to be pronounced.
Source: Courtlistener.com
The FBI regularly works on cases involving crypto assets. U.S. President Donald Trump strongly backs the idea of putting crypto assets confiscated in criminal investigations into a national crypto reserve as a long-term holding. The idea is still under deliberations among American lawmakers for now.
For the FBI, however, Yaroch’s case comes weeks after Director Kash Patel admitted that he failed to report a six-figure crypto-linked investment in MicroStrategy (MSTR) within the time required by federal law. Later he disclosed that he did invest between $100,000 and $250,000 in BTC evangelist Michael Saylor’s company shares. Patel, at the time had said, that the delay in reporting these investments was caused by a “miscommunication.”
