WASHINGTON — Patrick Steven Yarmoch, a supervisory special agent with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, faces federal charges for allegedly stealing more than $1 million in cryptocurrency. Yarmoch, who held a top secret security clearance, turned himself in to agency colleagues and was arrested July 31. The accusations were outlined in a complaint filed Aug. 1 with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The court filing alleges Yarmoch accessed FBI systems to extract private crypto keys. He targeted digital asset accounts linked to foreign individuals his unit had investigated, then executed as many as a dozen unauthorized transfers of cryptocurrency directly to his personal wallets.
Yarmoch served as a supervisory special agent at FBI headquarters in Washington, working within the agency's counterintelligence and espionage division. His unit focused on an unnamed adversary nation, according to court documents. Before that assignment, he worked for several years out of the FBI's Boston office in a national-security unit investigating the same adversary nation — giving him deep exposure to sensitive intelligence and digital asset investigations.
Investigators identified Yarmoch's use of multiple platforms to move the funds. He allegedly held accounts on Kraken, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, and accessed Suilend — a DeFi lending protocol built on the Sui blockchain — through a Slush wallet. Agents seized $925,426.07 from his cryptocurrency wallets and associated accounts during a search of his home.
Digital forensics on Yarmoch's computer and phone uncovered queries he made to artificial intelligence applications. One search asked: "If you had a bucket of money (around $1 million) and you wanted to leave the USA and become a resident or citizen of an EU country, what would you do?" The AI app recommended Portugal, according to the investigative findings.
Those queries lined up with Yarmoch's travel activity. Investigators found travel plans for him and his family to visit Portugal the following month. He had also taken unreported trips to Germany, Portugal and Grenada between May and July 2026 — a violation of FBI rules requiring agents to disclose foreign travel.
Yarmoch joined the FBI in 2017. After he self-reported the alleged theft, the agency suspended him for several days, then terminated his employment. His arrest followed on July 31.
Yarmoch, a resident of Ashburn, Virginia, is held in detention in Alexandria, Virginia. The criminal complaint charges him with interstate transport of stolen goods and receipt of stolen goods. As of the court filing, no attorney representing Yarmoch was listed in the court records.
