An FBI agent was arrested after allegedly stealing about $1 million in cryptocurrency from "adversarial cryptocurrency accounts," later admitting to federal investigators that he had "f**ked up." Patrick Yaroch was arrested Friday after allegedly confessing to stealing cryptocurrency beginning in late 2024 or early 2025.
According to an affidavit filed Aug. 1, Yaroch said he discovered keys that allowed him to transfer funds from digital wallets to himself.
He told investigators he was frustrated that he could not do more to prevent someone from an "adversarial nation" from using cryptocurrency, and made about a dozen transfers.
He told a Department of Justice employee that he "made some very poor decisions related to cryptocurrency wallets," and in a separate instance freely told federal agents interviewing him that he had "f**ked up." Yaroch was a supervisory special agent working at the FBI headquarters' counterintelligence and espionage division and before that worked in the agency's Boston division.
He was fired by the FBI on July 31.
