Ex-FBI agent pleads guilty to stealing $2.47M in crypto

Patrick Yaroch spent years working FBI counterintelligence cases out of Virginia. On Thursday, he admitted he'd been stealing from them. In federal court, Yaroch pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors say he used his own bureau access to drain about $2.47 million in cryptocurrency. The wallets belonged to 35 separate FBI investigations.

Some of those wallets held funds from ordinary criminal cases. Others belonged to suspected foreign spies under US surveillance. One wallet was bait: the FBI built it itself for a sting operation. Yaroch didn't get caught by an audit. He confessed to a Justice Department colleague back in July, months before any of this became public.

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Will this change how the FBI handles seized crypto? Entire court cases can depend on evidence staying untouched in those wallets. A theft like this could taint prosecutions beyond Yaroch's own. He still has to be sentenced. For now, the bigger lesson is uncomfortable: the people guarding crypto evidence can be the ones who steal it.