Well, the spy hunter became the thief. A special FBI counterintelligence agent, tasked with monitoring adversarial nations, used his investigative access to steal approximately $2.47 million in crypto assets and pleaded guilty this week. His name is Patrick Yaroch, 37, who joined the FBI in 2017 and became a supervisory agent in the headquarters’ counterintelligence division in February 2025. His method was straightforward: he searched internal FBI databases—including a classified repository—to locate private keys and login credentials for cryptocurrency wallets, then transferred the funds. Starting no later than December 2022, he conducted around 100 transfers from at least 79 wallets linked to 35 separate cases. Most of the stolen funds belonged to individuals under FBI investigation, including two wallets controlled by adversarial nations. He also stole from wallets of crime victims—at least ten times—and even targeted wallets funded by the FBI itself for operational use. Court documents state he “took everything”: the smallest transaction was 81 cents; the largest exceeded $580,000. After each theft, he checked the FBI system to see if anyone had discovered the breach. He first used the stolen funds to pay off over $100,000 in personal debts. The remainder, he planned to use to buy a vineyard in Portugal and start a new life. What awaited him instead of a vineyard was the courtroom: charges of wire fraud and money laundering, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years. Sentencing is scheduled for March 4 next year.