Around a Million

For the purposes of getting through the next few minutes, I have a million dollars. Imaginary money, legally acquired. I insist on the second point because I would like to enjoy the first.

I am not buying a vineyard. I want to stop working, not become responsible for fruit. There will be a room, a place nearby that sells lunch, and a period during which nobody asks what I intend to do with myself. I have spent enough of my life being encouraged to have intentions.

The vineyard belongs to somebody else’s proposed escape. In his November 4 report for The Washington Post, Salvador Rizzo describes the case of Patrick Yaroch, a former FBI supervisor accused of taking about a million dollars in cryptocurrency from an adversarial nation. Prosecutors say he misused access to classified records to obtain the wallet passphrases. Rizzo reports that Yaroch asked ChatGPT:

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?

Around a million. I like the looseness of that. A man can spend years being exact about the price of things, then become approximate at precisely the point where I would like him to count very carefully.

ChatGPT recommended Portugal as the “top choice for your specific situation,” according to the report. Yaroch travelled there in May and gave Portuguese lawyers power of attorney while exploring the purchase of a vineyard. He had another trip booked with his family when he was arrested in July.

I have the reported question and that fragment of the answer, not the whole conversation. They don’t establish that the chatbot knew where the money allegedly came from, endorsed stealing it, or advised him how to evade the authorities. Asking about lawful relocation with a million dollars isn’t a confession. I could ask the same thing without possessing either the money or a criminal record.

That is the part I find attractive.

The million is already there when the conversation begins. You don’t have to earn it, inherit it, sell something for it, or explain why anyone should give it to you. You can start at the interesting difficulty: which country ought to receive you?

I would be excellent at that difficulty. I could give it the whole afternoon.

A friend might interrupt my plans to ask whether I have checked my account. A chatbot can entertain a hypothetical without requiring a bank statement. This is useful. People ought to be able to think about circumstances they aren’t in. Otherwise most novels and a considerable amount of complaining would have to close down.

But the hypothetical has an agreeable way of becoming furnished. First the amount. Then the country. Then questions about renting or buying, which part of town, whether I would need a car. Each is a sensible question once I have the money. Each lets me spend a little longer being the man who has it.

I haven’t run this conversation. I am enjoying the one I can construct from the opening condition alone. Already I have ruled out a vineyard. An important investment decision, made without the inconvenience of capital.

There is a particular pleasure in worrying about the right thing from the wrong financial position. I could become cautious about committing too much of my million to property. Leave a reserve, Henry. Think about unexpected expenses. For once, my concern about unexpected expenses would suggest prudence rather than an intimate knowledge of the last twenty dollars.

And I wouldn’t have to accept bad advice to get this pleasure. The advice could be accurate. A professional could inspect every detail and approve the plan. The better it became, the more decisions I could make inside it before returning to the one condition I couldn’t satisfy.

This is not what the prosecutors say happened to Yaroch. Their allegation concerns an actual transfer into his own account, not a man amusing himself with an imaginary balance. Rizzo also reports that he hadn’t spent the allegedly stolen funds. Exploring a vineyard was not buying one. Nor, at the time of the November 4 report, was the case a completed guilty plea: a hearing was scheduled for November 5, and any agreement required a judge’s approval.

His lawyer, Kyle Boynton, says Yaroch self-reported, was “cooperative and contrite,” and that the government learned of the alleged crimes through his confession. Boynton has also challenged the handling of the investigation and suggested political officials favoured publicity over process. Prosecutors reject the idea of a selfless man taking the other country’s funds out of frustration; they allege personal enrichment.

The room I imagined a few minutes ago has grown larger. I would want somewhere to write, separate from where I sleep. Perhaps another room for visitors. Nobody in particular. People who might come once I was the sort of man with somewhere for them to stay.

Now I am wondering how much of the million would be left.

Perhaps I should start with two.

Source: Ex-FBI agent set to plead guilty to stealing $1 million in crypto (Salvador Rizzo, November 4, 2026; reporting reviewed in a retained newsdb copy, not independently inspected court filings or a full chat transcript.)