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FBI Agent Charged With $1M Crypto Theft From Agency Wallets
A senior FBI agent with top-secret clearance allegedly stole over $1M in crypto from wallets tied to foreign targets. The case raises questions about insider threats and digital asset security.
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A senior FBI counterintelligence agent with top-secret security clearance was arrested after allegedly stealing more than $1 million in cryptocurrency from digital wallets linked to people the agency was investigating, according to a federal court filing.
Patrick Steven Yarmoch, a supervisory special agent in the FBI's Counterintelligence and Espionage Division at Washington headquarters, is accused of accessing wallet keys stored within FBI systems and moving the digital assets to accounts he controlled. Court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia say Yarmoch carried out as many as a dozen unauthorized crypto transfers. The wallets were connected to foreign targets under investigation by the bureau, prosecutors said.
Yarmoch voluntarily approached colleagues and admitted to taking the cryptocurrency, authorities said. He was suspended, then terminated and arrested on July 31. The criminal complaint, filed Aug. 1, alleges he used privileged access gained through his role investigating an unnamed foreign adversary nation.