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FBI StrategyFederal Bureau of Investigation
Managing an organization as large and complex as the FBI requires a definitive idea of where we are now and where we hope to be in five years, 10 years, and 20 years. That's where our strategy comes in. The FBI strategy enables Bureau leaders and managers to define and pursue objectives crucial to mission success, prioritize resources to achieve those objectives, track progress along the way, address gaps when identified, and, most importantly, deliver consistent results.The FBI strategy is periodically reviewed and adapted to align with the changing threat landscape and organizational climate.
FBIMission and Priorities
Our mission is to protect the American people and uphold the U.S. Constitution.Mission
Our mission encompasses all that we do as an organization—protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States.Mission Priorities
Our mission priorities assist us to determine where to focus our efforts and resources in order to mitigate threats and move toward accomplishing our vision. The eight mission priorities outline how we protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States.We considered these questions when determining our mission priorities:
- What are those realities that most threaten the security of the United States?
- What are the threats to our way of life that the American people need the FBI to address first?
- To what degree do the threats fall most exclusively within the FBI's jurisdiction and competencies?
Core Values
Our core values—respect, integrity, accountability, leadership, diversity, compassion, fairness, and rigorous obedience to the Constitution—are the foundation of our organization and should be incorporated into everything we do.Enterprise Objectives
Our enterprise objectives are where we need to focus over the next three to five years to move the FBI forward. Our enterprise objectives each align to one of the guiding principles.Guiding Principles
Our four guiding principles—people, partnerships, process, and innovation—help us organize the changes needed to accomplish our vision.Vision
As we build momentum around our enterprise objectives, we will better accomplish our mission and begin to achieve our vision. Our vision is where we want to be: Ahead of the Threat.
FBIOur Motto
Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity.Our Locations
We work around the globe, including:
- Our Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
- Our 56 field offices located in major cities throughout the U.S. and about 350 satellite offices, called resident agencies, in cities and towns across the nation
- Our more than 60 international offices, called legal attaches, in U.S. embassies worldwide
Our People and Leadership
The FBI employs more than 35,000 people, including special agents and support professionals such as intelligence analysts, language specialists, scientists, and information technology specialists.Our Budget
In fiscal year 2023, our total direct-funded budget is approximately $10.8 billion.
Thanks FBI!
| FBI TIMELINE: | |
|---|---|
| ESTABLISHED IN 1908: Key dates and milestones in the history of the FBI decade-by-decade from 1908 until the present. | |
| 1900-1909 | |
| May 27, 1908 | A Sundry Civil Service Bill declared that Secret Service employees accepting assignments by any department other than Treasury (except in counterfeiting cases) would be suspended for two years. The provision became effective July 1. It prevented the practice of agencies like the Department of Justice (DOJ) from borrowing investigators for specific cases. |
| June 29, 1908 | Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte ordered the creation of a special agent force in the DOJ. His order reassigned 23 investigators already employed by the department and permanently hired eight more agents from the Treasury Department. |
| July 26, 1908 | Attorney General Bonaparte ordered the special agent force to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch. This order is considered the formal beginning of the agency that became the FBI in 1935. In March 1909, Attorney General George W. Wickersham named this force the Bureau of Investigation (BOI). |
| 1910-1919 | |
| June 25, 1910 | Congress passed the White Slave Traffic Act, also known as the Mann Act. The new law significantly increased the Bureau of Investigation's jurisdiction over interstate crime. |
| April 30, 1912 | Former Examiner A. Bruce Bielaski, Chief Finch's assistant since 1909, was appointed Chief of the Bureau of Investigation. |
| August 1914 | World War I began in Europe, placing additional responsibilities on the Bureau. On April 6, 1917, Congress declared war on Germany, and President Woodrow Wilson authorized the Bureau to detain enemy aliens. |
| June 15, 1917 | Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917. The act forbade espionage, interference with the draft, or attempts to discourage loyalty. It greatly increased the BOI's ability to deal with espionage and subversion during the war, but a lack of personnel hampered Bureau efforts in enforcing the law. |
| June 30, 1919 | Attorney General Palmer directed that the Bureau of Investigation be placed under the Assistant Attorney General's direction. William J. Flynn, former Chief of the Secret Service, was named Director of the Bureau of Investigation. |
| October 28, 1919 | Congress passed the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, also known as the Dyer Act. This act authorized the Bureau to investigate auto thefts that crossed state lines. Prior to the passage of this act, jurisdictional boundaries between states hampered the ability of law enforcement officials to thwart interstate auto theft rings. |
| 1920-1929 | |
| August 22, 1921 | William J. Burns, the head of a famous private detective agency, became Director of the Bureau of Investigation. Twenty-six year old J. Edgar Hoover was named Assistant Director. |
| May 10, 1924 | Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone designated J. Edgar Hoover Acting Director of the Bureau of Investigation. By the end of the year, Stone appointed him Director. |
| July 1, 1924 | The Bureau set up an Identification Division after Congress authorized "the exchange of identification records with officers of the cities, counties, and states." The Bureau established its fingerprint files in Washington, D.C. by consolidating collections from the former Bureau of Criminal Identification at Leavenworth, Kansas and those of the International Association of Chiefs of Police formerly housed in Chicago. |
| October 11, 1925 | Auto thief Martin James Durkin shot and killed Special Agent Edwin C. Shanahan while Shanahan tried to arrest him. Agent Shanahan was the first Bureau agent killed in the line of duty. |
| January 1, 1928 | The Bureau instituted a theoretical and practical training course for new special agents. During a two-month assignment to the Washington Field Office, new agents were instructed in Bureau rules and procedures, provided with practical exercises in crime investigation, and evaluated by experienced agents as to their qualities and potential. |
| 1930-1939 | |
| June 11, 1930 | Congress authorized the Bureau's National Division of Identification and Information to collect and compile uniform crime statistics for the entire United States. Previously, this program was handled by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. |
| March 1, 1932 | The Bureau initiated the international exchange of fingerprint data with friendly foreign governments. Due to the rise of tension in Europe, this program was halted in the late 1930s. It was not re-instituted until well after World War II. |
| June 22, 1932 | In response to the Lindbergh kidnapping case and other high profile kidnappings, Congress passed the Federal Kidnapping Act. The act gave the Bureau authority to investigate kidnappings that were perpetrated across state borders. |
| July 1, 1932 | The Bureau of Investigation became United States BOI or USBOI. Within a year it was named the Division of Investigation when the Bureau of Prohibition was placed under the supervision of Director Hoover. The Prohibition Bureau was quickly phased out over the next several years; it was not merged into the USBOI. |
| November 24, 1932 | The Bureau established a Technical Laboratory in the Southern Railway Building at 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest, Washington, D.C. It provided services to the FBI and other federal, state, local, and even international law enforcement. |
| September 1933 | Gangster "Machine Gun" Kelly reputedly coined the nickname "G-Men" for FBI agents while being interrogated. The legend that Kelly shouted "Don't Shoot G-men, Don't Shoot," while he was being arrested is doubtful. The heroic "G-Man," short for Government Man, quickly became synonymous with FBI special agents in the public's imagination. |
| June 18, 1934 | Congress enacted a series of anti-crime legislation over the months of May and June 1934 in response to crimes like the June 1933 Kansas City Massacre, where gangsters killed Agent Raymond Caffrey, Jr. and other law enforcement officials. These May/June crime bills gave special agents the power of arrest and the authority to carry firearms. Previously, special agents could only make a "citizen's arrest." Otherwise, the agent had to call on a U.S. marshal or local police officer to take custody of a suspect. |
| July 22, 1934 | John Herbert Dillinger, one of the most notorious gangsters of his day, resisted arrest outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago and was killed by special agents. |
| October 1934 | The Department of Justice Building at 9th and Pennsylvania Avenue was dedicated. FBI Headquarters occupied space in the building until the 1970s. |
| July 1, 1935 | The Division of Investigation officially became the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the beginning of Fiscal Year 1936. |
| July 29, 1935 | The FBI established a national police training program, the forerunner of the FBI National Academy, when it welcomed a class of 23 police officers for a 12-week course of instruction in scientific and practical law enforcement methods. |
| May 24, 1936 | President Roosevelt called Director Hoover to a morning meeting to discuss his concerns about subversive activity in the United States. He asked Hoover to report on the activities of Nazi and communist groups. After receiving approval from the Attorney General and authority from the Secretary of State to conduct the investigation, Hoover notified his special agents in charge of the assignment. |
| 1939 | President Roosevelt assigned responsibility for investigating espionage, sabotage, and other subversive activities jointly to the FBI, the Military Intelligence Service of the War Department (MID), and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). |
| 1940-1949 | |
| June 24, 1940 | The FBI established a Special Intelligence Service (SIS) at President Roosevelt's request. In connection with the SIS, the Bureau dispatched agents to countries throughout the Western Hemisphere (except Panama). FBI agents in South and Central America gathered intelligence information and worked to prevent Axis espionage, sabotage, and propaganda efforts aimed against the U.S. and its allies. Special agents assigned to posts in Europe, Canada, and Latin America began acting in an official liaison capacity. After President Truman closed the SIS in 1946, these agent liaisons formed the basis of the FBI's Legal Attache (Legat) Program. |
| August 31, 1940 | The FBI created a Disaster Squad to assist civilian authorities in identifying persons who died in a Virginia plane crash. FBI personnel were among the victims. |
| January 1, 1941 | The FBI seal, as currently depicted, came into limited use at this time. The prior seal had been the Department of Justice seal with an extra band for the FBI and its motto. |
| June 28, 1941 | Special agents arrested German spy Frederick Joubert "Fritz" Duquesne and 32 other German agents following a two-year investigation. Agents successfully filmed members of Duquesne's ring as they provided information to William Sebold, a confidential FBI informant. |
| June 12, 1942 | Four German saboteurs led by George John Dasch landed from a U-boat on the beach near Amagansett, Long Island, New York. Five days later, a second team of four German saboteurs, led by Edward Kerling, landed at Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida. Dasch turned himself in at the New York Field Office two days after landing. Within two weeks, the FBI captured all eight saboteurs. |
| May 30, 1945 | Between January 1940 and May 1945, the Bureau investigated 19,299 alleged cases of sabotage. Sabotage in some form was found in 2,282 incidences, primarily acts of spite, carelessness, malicious mischief, and the like. During World War II, not a single act of enemy-directed sabotage was discovered in the United States. |
| August 1946 | Congress passed the Atomic Energy Act, making the FBI responsible for investigating persons having access to restricted nuclear data. The FBI was also responsible for investigation of criminal violations of this act. |
| March 21, 1947 | Executive Order 9835 established the Federal Employees Loyalty Program. Upon agency request, the FBI investigated when derogatory information was found regarding government employees. |
| December 15, 1948 | A New York grand jury indicted former State Department employee Alger Hiss for perjury. The charge stemmed from a congressional investigation of Communist subversion and espionage in the government. |
| 1950-1959 | |
| February 2, 1950 | British security agents arrested Klaus Fuchs after an investigation based on an FBI tip derived from Soviet telegrams that were decrypted and decoded by the Army Signals Agency with FBI investigative assistance; these decrypted, decoded cables are known collectively under the codename Venona. |
| March 14, 1950 | The FBI initiated the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program to draw national attention to dangerous criminals who have avoided capture. |
| March 6, 1951 | The trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, David Greenglass, and Morton Sobell began in U.S. District Court in New York City. All four were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage and sentenced on April 5. |
| September 1951 | The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1949 convictions of top communist leaders prosecuted under the Smith Act. Four of the eleven convicts jumped bail and hid in the communist underground for several years. |
| October 27, 1955 | FBI Director Hoover, with the concurrence of the Attorney General, authorized official cooperation with reporter Don Whitehead as he wrote a history of the Bureau entitled The FBI Story. The book became a bestseller and was made into a 1959 movie starring Jimmy Stewart as an FBI agent. |
| November 1, 1955 | United Airlines Flight 629 exploded near Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and five crew members. The FBI's massive investigation identified Jack Graham as the culprit. The Bureau also provided assistance from its Disaster Squad in identifying the deceased. |
| June 21, 1957 | The FBI arrested Colonel Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, a Soviet espionage agent. |
| November 14, 1957 | New York State Trooper Edgar Croswell uncovered a conference of crime bosses who had gathered from across the country on the estate of Joseph Barbara in Apalachin, New York. In response to the exposure of a nationwide criminal syndicate, Director Hoover instituted the Top Hoodlum program to develop information about prominent criminal leaders and their activities. |
| 1960-1969 | |
| August 7, 1962 | President John F. Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandum 177. This memorandum enhanced the government's foreign police-training program. In connection with this program, Director Hoover agreed to accept up to 20 international police officers into each session of the FBI National Academy. |
| June 12, 1963 | Medgar Evers, Mississippi Field Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was killed because of his civil rights advocacy. The FBI arrested Byron De La Beckwith for the crime. He was indicted and tried twice in state court. The jury did not reach a verdict on either occasion. On December 18, 1990, a grand jury indicted De La Beckwith again. He was extradited from Tennessee to Mississippi and tried in 1993. The jury found him guilty. |
| November 22, 1963 | Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the FBI to investigate the murder. At that time the FBI had no statutory authority to investigate presidential assassinations. Jurisdictional conflict between federal, state, and local authorities created confusion in the investigation of the case. |
| June 21, 1964 | Civil rights workers James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Following the FBI's Mississippi Burning (MIBURN) investigation, seven men-including Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and Sam Holloway Bowers, Jr., the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the KKK of Mississippi-were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment under the federal civil rights statutes for the crime. In 2005, one major conspirator, Edgar Ray Killen, was eventually convicted in state court on three counts of manslaughter and received a long prison sentence. |
| July 4, 1966 | President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). FBI records eventually became subject to the FOIA. |
| January 1, 1967 | The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) became operational. Law enforcement officials from across the country could now tap this electronic database of criminal histories and other information to identify suspects and learn more about persons arrested. |
| April 4, 1968 | James Earl Ray assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. The FBI opened a special investigation based on the violation of Dr. King's civil rights so that federal jurisdiction in the matter could be established. |
| June 1, 1968 | Congress enacted Public Law 90351 providing for the appointment of the FBI Director by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate to a 10-year term. The act was to take effect after Director Hoover's tenure. |
| 1970-1979 | |
| October 15, 1970 | Congress approved the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. This law contained a section known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act or RICO. RICO has become a very effective tool in convicting members of organized criminal enterprises. |
| May 2, 1972 | J. Edgar Hoover died in his sleep at the age of 77. President Richard M. Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray III to be Acting Director. |
| May 8, 1972 | The FBI Academy opened a new training facility on the U.S. Marine Corps Base at Quantico, Virginia. |
| April 27, 1973 | William D. Ruckelshaus was appointed Acting Director of the FBI by President Nixon following the resignation of L. Patrick Gray III. |
| July 9, 1973 | Clarence M. Kelley was sworn in as Director of the FBI. Kelley was a former FBI agent and had served as the Chief of Police of Kansas City, Missouri for many years before this appointment. |
| June 26, 1975 | Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams were murdered while conducting an investigation on an Indian reservation near Pine Ridge, South Dakota. American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier was convicted of committing the murders. |
| September 30, 1975 | The J. Edgar Hoover FBI building was formally dedicated. FBI Headquarters units had begun moving into the new building the previous November. |
| March 1976 | Attorney General Edward H. Levi issued guidelines for FBI intelligence activities. In April 1976, he issued guidelines for FBI domestic security activities in response to congressional concerns raised by the Church and Pike committees. |
| October 4, 1976 | The FBI established an Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate charges of malfeasance against Bureau employees. |
| February 23, 1978 | William H. Webster took the oath of office as FBI Director. Director Webster continued Director Kelley's emphasis on "quality" investigations. |
| April 3, 1978 | The FBI Laboratory Division pioneered the use of laser technology to detect latent "crime scene" fingerprints. This date marks the first successful use of lasers to detect latent prints on case evidence. |
| June 7, 1978 | A federal grand jury in Miami indicted 22 labor union officials and shipping executives for kickbacks, embezzlement, and other illegal activities, surfacing the UNIRAC undercover investigation. Eventually more than 110 convictions were recorded, including Anthony M. Scotto, longshoreman union leader and organized crime figure. |
| 1980-1989 | |
| January 5, 1981 | Attorney General Guidelines were issued concerning FBI undercover agents involving the investigation of bribery of public officials. The FBI's successful ABSCAM investigation had raised concerns that undercover efforts might lead to entrapment. This was not the case in the ABSCAM investigation. The courts upheld the convictions. |
| January 28, 1982 | At the direction of Attorney General William French Smith, the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) began reporting to the Director of the FBI. The FBI and DEA were given concurrent jurisdiction over narcotics violations and have worked together on these matters since this time. |
| August 1983 | The Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) became fully operational. HRT operators act in hostage situations throughout the country and are trained to handle negotiations as well as hostage rescue should those negotiations fail. |
| March 15, 1984 | The FBI's Greylord investigation into judicial misconduct in Cook County, Illinois yielded its first conviction, a former deputy traffic court clerk. Other convictions followed. Eighty-two judges, lawyers, clerks, and police officers pleaded guilty or were convicted in court. |
| April 9, 1984 | Charges were announced in the "Pizza Connection" case. FBI agents and Italian law enforcement officials documented international connections between American and Italian organized crime groups in a large heroin distribution ring. Eighteen men were convicted, including five organized crime family leaders. |
| July 10, 1984 | The National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) was established at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia. Initially focusing on unsolved murders, NCAVC used sophisticated behavioral science techniques and a complex computer system to assist state and local authorities to identify suspects and predict criminal behavior. |
| 1985 | A series of high profile espionage arrests characterized 1985 as "the Year of the Spy." In May, the John Walker spy ring was arrested. Former Navy personnel John Walker, Jerry Whitworth, Arthur Walker, and Michael Walker were convicted of or plead guilty to passing classified material to the Soviet Union. On November 21, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a Navy intelligence analyst, was arrested for spying for Israel. On November 23, Larry Wu Tai Chin, a former CIA analyst, was arrested on charges of spying for the People's Republic of China since 1952. On November 25, a third major spy, former National Security Agency employee William Pelton, was arrested and charged with selling military secrets to the Soviets. |
| September 13, 1987 | Fawaz Younis became the first suspected foreign terrorist arrested by the Bureau for a crime perpetrated against Americans on foreign soil. In March 1989, a U.S. District Court sentenced Younis to 30 years for the hijacking of a Jordanian plane carrying two Americans. |
| November 2, 1987 | William Steele Sessions took the oath of office as Director of the FBI. |
| February 7, 1988 | The Fox Television Network premiered America's Most Wanted, a program that featured dramatizations of crimes committed by federal and state fugitives. |
| June 14, 1988 | Operation Illwind, an FBI investigation into widespread corruption in Department of Defense procurement, led to indictments of government officials and private contractors for fraud and bribery in 12 states and the District of Columbia. |
| December 21, 1988 | A Pan American 747 flight carrying 259 people exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all on board and 11 people on the ground. An extensive investigation by the FBI, U.S., and foreign police authorities followed. |
| 1990-1999 | |
| August 1991 | The FBI's Computer Analysis and Response Team, or CART, became operational in the FBI Laboratory. CART provides timely and accurate examinations of computers and computer disks as a support to investigations and prosecutions. |
| March 11, 1992 | G. Norm Christensen was appointed the first assistant director of the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, which had been created the previous month to consolidate existing FBI services involving criminal histories, fingerprints, and crime reports provided to law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. |
| July 1992 | The FBI Laboratory installed DRUGFIRE, a database that stores and links specific, unique markings left on bullets and shell casings after a gun is fired. Facts on spent ammunition recovered at drug-related shootings are stored in DRUGFIRE and used to link crimes committed with the same gun. |
| February 26, 1993 | A bomb exploded under the World Trade Center in New York City, leaving a five-story crater, killing six persons, and injuring more than a thousand others. The FBI, other federal agencies, and police authorities in New York worked together on this investigation. |
| February 28, 1993 | Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents raided a compound of the Branch Davidian cult, led by David Koresh. Known as the Mt. Carmel Church, the facility was located nine miles from Waco, Texas. The resulting confrontation resulted in the deaths of four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians. |
| September 1, 1993 | Louis J. Freeh was sworn in as FBI Director. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, he was instrumental in the Pizza Connection prosecutions. |
| February 21, 1994 | FBI agents arrested Aldrich Hazen Ames, a 30-year CIA veteran, and his wife, Maria del Rosario Casas Ames, on espionage charges. Ames' crimes began in April 1985 and resulted in at least ten Soviet sources of the CIA and FBI being killed. Other sources were imprisoned, and more than 100 intelligence operations were compromised. Ames provided thousands of classified documents to the Soviet Union and later, the Russian Republic. |
| April 19, 1995 | On the second anniversary of the Waco tragedy, a truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people. President Clinton designated the FBI as lead law enforcement agency in the case. The U.S. Marshals Service, the Treasury Department, and many other state and local agencies contributed to the investigation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also coordinated its efforts with the FBI, as did the armed forces, federal community mental health experts, and the General Services Administration. |
| June 16, 1995 | The International Law Enforcement Academy graduated its first class of 33 law enforcement officials from former East Bloc nations. |
| December 8, 1997 | The FBI announced its new National DNA Index System (NDIS). NDIS allows forensic science laboratories to link serial violent crimes to each other and to known sex offenders through the electronic exchange of DNA profiles. This same day, the FBI Laboratory announced its success in extracting a DNA profile using mitochondrial DNA (mDNA). mDNA analysis allows extraction of DNA from minute quantities of physical evidence like a strand of human hair. |
| August 7, 1998 | Terrorist bombing attacks on U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killed hundreds of U.S., Kenyan, and Tanzanian citizens. A Joint Terrorist Task Force, composed of the FBI and other federal, state, and local authorities, cooperated in the investigation. |
| April 1, 1999 | Taiwanese-based Four Pillars Enterprises became the first foreign company convicted of economic espionage under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. This landmark investigation was conducted by the Cleveland Division. |
| April 5, 1999 | "Top Ten" fugitives Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were surrendered to Dutch authorities to be tried before a Scottish court for charges in connection with the December 21, 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. |
| June 7, 1999 | Usama bin Laden was added to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list. Bin Laden was charged in connection with the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa. |
| June 23, 1999 | FBI personnel traveled to Kosovo to assist in the collection of evidence and the examination of forensic materials in support of the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic and others before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. |
| 2000-2009 | |
| January 19, 2000 | Indictments of Mokhtar Haouari and Abdel Ghani Meskini were announced in the "Borderbom" investigation. The two were charged with collaborating with Ahmed Ressam and others in a wide-ranging terrorist conspiracy to bomb American sites during the January 1, 2000, millennium celebrations. The FBI/New York Police Department Joint Terrorist Task Force, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, and Canada's Department of Justice assisted in the investigation. |
| May 8, 2000 | The Internet Fraud Complaint Center, now the Internet Crime Complaint Center, was launched as a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. The center serves as a clearinghouse for triaging cyber crime complaints and works closely with a range of law enforcement agencies and private sector organizations. |
| August 15, 2000 | Director Freeh revised the FBI disciplinary system to create a single system for all FBI employees, including those in the Senior Executive Service. |
| October 12, 2000 | Suicide terrorists exploded a small boat alongside the USS Cole as it was refueling in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 American sailors. FBI investigators and other personnel were dispatched to assist in the investigation. |
| November 8, 2000 | Former Senator Danforth, conducting an independent review of FBI actions in the Waco tragedy, released his final report exonerating the FBI of wrongdoing. In October, the Government Operations Committee had reached a similar conclusion. |
| January 5, 2001 | The FBI publicly announced the national InfraGard program in the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center. The program centers on securely sharing information about computer intrusions and intrusion threats between business and law enforcement so that the confidentiality of potentially affected businesses is protected. |
| February 18, 2001 | FBI Agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested for conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Hanssen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage on July 6, 2001. On May 10, 2002, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. |
| June 2, 2001 | Louis J. Freeh retired as Director of the FBI. |
| September 4, 2001 | Former U.S. Attorney Robert S. Mueller, III, took the oath of office as FBI Director. He had been nominated by President George W. Bush in June 2001 and unanimously confirmed by the Senate on August 2. |
| September 11, 2001 | Following the massive terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, the FBI dedicated 7,000 of its 11,000 special agents and thousands of FBI support personnel to the PENTTBOM investigation. PENTTBOM is short for Pennsylvania, Pentagon, and Twin Towers Bombing. |
| October 2001 | Director Mueller ordered all FBI field offices to create joint terrorism task forces or regional terrorism task forces to coordinate counterterrorism efforts across the United States. The first such task force, in New York, was created in 1980. |
| October 18, 2001 | In conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service, the FBI offered a reward of $1,000,000 for information leading to the arrest of the person who mailed letters contaminated with anthrax to media organizations and congressional offices. |
| October 2001 | President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act into law. This anti-terrorism law provided the FBI with additional resources to hire new agents and critical support personnel, employ court approved wiretaps against potential terrorists more easily, seek additional information about potential terrorists more easily, share criminal investigative information with counterterrorism investigators in other government officials, and work with other government agencies to secure our borders and curtail international money laundering. |
| December 2001 | Following the collapse of the energy trading company Enron, the FBI launched what would become the largest and most complex white-collar crime case in its history. Many Enron executives, including Chairman Kenneth Lay and CEO Jeffrey Skilling, were convicted or pleaded guilty in the case. |
| December 3, 2001 | In response in to the 9/11 attacks, the FBI announced a series of organizational changes, including the creation of a Cyber Division, an Office of Intelligence (later renamed the Directorate of Intelligence), a chief technology officer, a Security Division, an Office of Law Enforcement Coordination, and new executive assistant director positions. |
| December 11, 2001 | Zacarias Moussaoui was indicted for crimes relating to the 9/11 attacks. In April 2005, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to six charges against him in connection with his participation in the conspiracy. In May 2006, he was sentenced to life in prison. |
| January 16, 2002 | Richard Colvin Reid, a British citizen and self-professed member of al Qaeda, was indicted for attempting to destroy American Airlines Flight 63 in flight with explosive devices concealed in his shoes. Reid, who later became known as the shoe bomber, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. |
| February 5, 2002 | John Walker Lindh, an American captured while fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was charged as an al Qaeda-trained terrorist who conspired with the Taliban to kill his fellow citizens. Lindh was later sentenced to 20 years in prison. |
| May 29, 2002 | Director Mueller established a new set of 10 priorities for the FBI. |
| September 13, 2002 | The Buffalo Joint Terrorism Task Force executed search warrants in an investigation centering on seven Yemeni-Americans living in Lackawanna, New York. These individuals traveled overseas in the summer of 2001 to attend a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, where they met Usama bin Laden. Six of the individuals were arrested in the U.S. and pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges; the seventh was later arrested in Yemen. |
| October 24, 2002 | An extensive investigation by Maryland and Virginia police, the FBI, and many other agencies led to the arrest of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, who were responsible for a series of sniper murders in and around Washington, D.C. Among the casualties was FBI intelligence analyst Linda Franklin. |
| November 18, 2002 | A court ruling enabled the FBI to share foreign intelligence information between criminal and intelligence investigations for the first time and allowed terrorism cases to be conducted with the full suite of criminal and intelligence tools and resources. |
| February 11, 2003 | The National Virtual Translation Center was created by Congress to provide timely and accurate translations of foreign intelligence to U.S. intelligence agencies. The FBI serves as its executive agent, conducting background investigations on new hires, testing language skills, and providing space and other administrative support. |
| March 1, 2003 | With the help of the FBI, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the operational mastermind of September 11 and other major al Qaeda terrorist attacks, was captured in Pakistan. |
| May 1, 2003 | The Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) became operational under the leadership of the CIA, with the full partnership of the FBI. The TTIC was responsible for fusing threat information from the FBI and other agencies and providing analysis about the credibility of information and the probability of an attack. TTIC was merged into the National Counterterrorism Center in 2005. |
| May 31, 2003 | A local police officer in Murphy, North Carolina arrested wanted bomber Eric Robert Rudolph, ending a massive five-year manhunt by the FBI and law enforcement authorities. Rudolph pleaded guilty in 2005 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. |
| September 12, 2003 | Each FBI field office was directed to create a Field Intelligence Group. These teams of agents, analysts, linguists, and physical surveillance specialists help pull together, synthesize, and share intelligence locally and nationally. |
| September 16, 2003 | Director Mueller joined the Attorney General and other government leaders in announcing the creation of the Terrorist Screening Center to consolidate terrorist watch lists and provide 24/7 operational support for thousands of federal screeners nationwide. The center began operations on December 1, 2003. |
| December 2003 | The FBI Laboratory launched the multi-agency Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) to coordinate and manage a unified national effort to gather and exploit information on improvised explosive devices recovered in the U.S. and overseas. |
| April 22, 2004 | The FBI launched Operation Fastlink, the largest international enforcement action ever taken to combat global Internet piracy. The FBI was assisted by law enforcement entities from 10 countries. |
| July 22, 2004 | The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, more commonly referred to as the 9/11 Commission, released its report. Among its many findings, the report provided recommendations to further strengthen FBI intelligence capabilities. The Bureau had provided a comprehensive summary of its reform efforts to the commission and the nation on April 14. |
| December 26, 2004 | A major tsunami devastated significant parts of Southeast Asia, killing more than 200,000 people in 14 countries. In the aftermath, the FBI provided extensive help identifying the deceased and offered its victim assistance services. The Bureau also investigated numerous cases of relief fraud, especially computer-related spoofing and phishing scams. |
| August 31, 2005 | The FBI disrupted an alleged extremist plot conceived in a California prison. Three U.S. citizens and one permanent U.S. resident originally from Pakistan were planning to attack U.S. military facilities, an Israeli consulate building, and several Jewish synagogues in the Los Angeles area. |
| September 12, 2005 | The FBI established a National Security Branch (NSB) that combines the missions, capabilities, and resources of counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and intelligence elements under the leadership of a senior FBI official. In July 2006, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate was created within the NSB to integrate related components previously spread throughout the Bureau. |
| September 15, 2005 | The FBI launched a tip line to collect information on public corruption and government fraud connected to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Immediately following the disaster, the Bureau sent more than 500 agents and other personnel to New Orleans to help secure the city, answer emergency calls, patrol the streets, identify victims, and conduct search and rescue operations. In ensuing months, the FBI investigated many cases involving related scams and public corruption activities. |
| November 15, 2005 | The FBI unveiled the Top Ten Art Crimes list to highlight major cases of stolen works of art. |
| January 3, 2006 | Following an FBI investigation, former political lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud and other charges related to the corruption of public officials and his activities with American Indian tribes. |
| January 20, 2006 | Eleven members of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front were indicted for a series of domestic terrorist arsons between 1996 and 2001 as part of Operation Backfire. |
| February 2006 | The FBI launched its Cold Case Initiative, focusing on racially motivated killings from the civil rights era. Special agents from more than a dozen field offices-with the assistance of their law enforcement partners, communities, and the media-expended thousands of investigative hours tracking down witnesses, pursuing leads, and locating family members who may never have known what happened to their loved ones. |
| October 11, 2006 | U.S. citizen Adam Gadahn was indicted on treason and material support charges for providing aid to al Qaeda. He was the first person charged with treason since World War II. Gadahn appeared in numerous al Qaeda anti-American videotapes and was a member of the Most Wanted Terrorist list until his death in 2015. |
| January 19, 2007 | Congressman Robert W. Ney was sentenced on multiple charges in connection with the Abramoff scandal, including honest services fraud and making false statements to the U.S. House of Representatives. |
| April 2007 | The FBI provided assistance to law enforcement agencies in the investigation of the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech, which resulted in the loss of 32 lives. The FBI also supported victims of the tragedy. |
| August 2007 | The FBI responded to the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis, providing forensic and investigative support to the National Transportation Safety Board, which led the federal investigation. |
| January 22, 2008 | Jose Padilla and two associates were sentenced on charges of conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim individuals in a foreign country and to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. |
| August 6, 2008 | FBI and Department of Justice officials announced that Army scientist Bruce Ivins was determined to have acted alone in the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five Americans. On February 19, 2010, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service formally concluded the investigation, releasing 30 FBI files totaling 2,720 pages. |
| December 2008 | Five extremists were convicted of conspiring to kill soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey. A sixth co-defendant had previously pleaded guilty. All six were arrested in May 2007. |
| March 12, 2009 | Financier Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty to multiple counts of fraud and money laundering after bilking his clients out of billions of dollars. In June 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $170 billion. |
| August 5, 2009 | Former Louisiana Congressman William J. Jefferson was convicted of bribery, racketeering, and money laundering. In November 2009, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $470,000. |
| September 24, 2009 | Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Colorado resident, was arrested for plotting to attack the New York subway system with explosive bombs. Zazi pleaded guilty to various crimes in February 2010. |
| 2010-2019 | |
| May 1, 2010 | An explosives-filled vehicle was found abandoned in Times Square in New York City. Working with New York Police Department detectives, the FBI identified Faisal Shahzad as the person who purchased the vehicle. He was arrested a few days later as he tried to leave the country and was later sentenced to life in prison for the attempted bombing. |
| June 27, 2010 | The FBI arrested 10 agents of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service who had tried to disguise themselves as ordinary Americans during long-term, "deep-cover" assignments to gather U.S. secrets. Each subsequently pleaded guilty. The arrests were the culmination of an extensive, closely-held investigation known as Operation Ghost Stories. The 10 agents were transferred to Russia in exchange for four others. |
| October 6, 2010 | A total of 133 law enforcement officers and others in Puerto Rico were charged in Operation Guard Shack, a massive police corruption takedown based in San Juan. Those charged with drug trafficking crimes and the use of a firearm in the commission of those crimes included 61 officers from the Puerto Rico Police Department, 16 officers from other municipal police departments, a dozen Puerto Rico Department of Corrections officers, members of the National Guard, and two U.S. Army soldiers. |
| November 24, 2010 | A federal jury in Norfolk convicted five men from Somalia for engaging in piracy and related offenses in their attack on the USS Nicholas. This was the first piracy trial conviction in the U.S. since 1820. |
| January 8, 2011 | Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a political event in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people-including a federal judge-and wounding 13 others. Among those seriously injured was U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was the shooter's apparent target. Loughner was arrested at the scene, and he was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison. |
| May 1, 2011 | President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden-a Most Wanted terrorist and the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks-had been killed in Pakistan by U.S. forces. |
| June 22, 2011 | James "Whitey" Bulger-a fugitive for 16 years and a Top Tenner for 12 years-was arrested in Santa Monica, California by an FBI-led task force. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bulger ran a violent criminal organization from South Boston. In 2013, he was convicted of murdering 11 people and committing other crimes; he was sentenced to life in prison. |
| July 27, 2011 | Following a request by the President, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to extend Director Mueller's term by two years. Mueller led the Bureau for exactly 12 years, stepping down on September 4, 2013, making him the second longest serving FBI Director in history. |
| August 5, 2011 | The FBI released its first mobile application-the Child ID App. The free tool enables users to electronically store photos and vital information about their children in case of emergency. |
| February 16, 2012 | Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called "underwear bomber," was sentenced to life in prison for his attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009. Abdulmutallab planned to detonate the bomb during the flight and to kill the 290 passengers and crew on board. The bomb caught fire but did not fully explode; no one was injured. |
| July 1, 2012 | The FBI deployed Sentinel, a digital case management system for Bureau investigations. Sentinel uses a web-based application for entering, reviewing, approving, and researching case and intelligence information. It also streamlines processes through "electronic workflow," making new case information and intelligence available more quickly to agents and analysts. |
| September 11, 2012 | The U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya was attacked, resulting in the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. The FBI launched an investigation, using social media to solicit information from people in the region. |
| February 4, 2013 | Working with local authorities, the FBI rescued a 5-year-old boy who had been held hostage in an underground bunker in Alabama for nearly a week. A 65-year-old man named Jimmy Dykes had abducted the boy after boarding his school bus and fatally shooting the driver; Dykes was killed during the rescue operation. |
| April 15, 2013 | Two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring hundreds. An investigation by the FBI, local police, and other agencies quickly led to the identification of two suspects-brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tamerlan was killed while fleeing law enforcement; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was later indicted and convicted in court. |
| June 17, 2013 | The FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program-an iconic symbol of the Bureau's crime-fighting ability recognized around the world-reached a milestone with the naming of the 500th fugitive to the list. This individual, who was charged with sexually exploiting children, was captured a few days later. |
| September 4, 2013 | James B. Comey was sworn in as Director of the FBI. Comey had previously served as a U.S. attorney in New York and as deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice. Director Mueller retired the same day after 12 years of service, completing the second longest term of a director in FBI history. |
| May 19, 2014 | Five Chinese military hackers were indicted on charges of computer hacking, economic espionage, and other offenses directed at six American victims in the U.S. nuclear power, metals, and solar products industries. This marked the first time criminal charges had been filed against known state actors for hacking. |
| June 2, 2014 | The Department of Justice and the FBI announced a multinational effort to disrupt the GameOver Zeus botnet, believed to be responsible for the theft of millions of dollars from businesses and consumers in the U.S. and around the world. In a related action, U.S. and foreign law enforcement officials seized Cryptolocker command and control servers. Cryptolocker is a type of ransomware that locks victims' computer files and demands a fee in return for unlocking them. |
| August 5, 2014 | The FBI established the Intelligence Branch to develop strategic direction and oversight for the FBI's intelligence program. The new branch is responsible for strategy, resources, policies, and operations. |
| September 15, 2014 | The FBI announced that its Next Generation Identification (NGI) System had achieved full operational capacity. The NGI System expanded the Bureau's biometric identification capabilities. It ultimately replaced the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, while adding new services and capabilities. |
| February 20, 2015 | FBI personnel secretly captured a Tor server that hosted a "Dark Web" bulletin board named "Playpen." The bulletin board was believed to be the world's largest child sexual abuse material website. On May 1, 2017, Steven W. Chase-the creator and lead administrator of Playpen-was sentenced to 30 years in prison. |
| April 19, 2015 | A new FBI Basic Field Training Course (BFTC) was instituted at Quantico. The new course combines special agents and intelligence analyst training in classroom experiences to develop and enhance integration and collaboration in the field. The BFTC replaced two distinct and separate training programs for agents and analysts with one course. |
| May 27, 2015 | An FBI New York and IRS investigation into a decades-long corruption scheme in FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, led to indictments of high-ranking officials and corporate executives affiliated with FIFA. These officials used bribes, kickbacks, and other criminal activity to control lucrative marketing rights to the World Cup and other international tournaments. Sixteen additional FIFA officials were charged in December 2015. |
| May 29, 2015 | Ross Ulbricht, creator and owner of the Silk Road-a web-based marketplace of illegal drugs and other illicit items-was sentenced to life in prison following an FBI investigation. The FBI shut down the Silk Road in 2013. |
| August 11, 2015 | The FBI dedicated its new 360,000-square-foot Biometric Technology Center (BTC), located on the campus of Criminal Justice Information Services Division in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The BTC facility enables the CJIS Division, which has the largest centralized collection of biometric information in the world, and the Department of Defense, with its military biometrics database systems, to advance biometric technologies. The facility's capabilities include DNA, iris recognition, voice patterns, facial patterns, and palm prints. |
| December 2, 2015 | Syed Rizwan Farook and his spouse, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on a holiday party for the San Bernardino Department of Public Health at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. Farook, an employee of the Health Department, and Malik killed 14 people and seriously injured 22 others. Both were killed in a subsequent shoot-out with police. The attack, considered an act of homegrown violent extremism, was terrorist-inspired. The FBI conducted a massive investigation that determined the background and motivations of the couple. Investigators also identified an additional conspirator who provided assault rifles used in the attack. |
| February 4, 2016 | The FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration released a 45-minute documentary titled Chasing the Dragon: The Life of an Opiate Addict to raise awareness of opioid addiction among young people amidst a growing epidemic of prescription opiate and heroin abuse. |
| June 12, 2016 | Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a terrorist attack/hate crime inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Mateen was killed in a shoot-out with police. The FBI thoroughly investigated the attack and Mateen's motivations and background. |
| July 5, 2016 | Director Comey announced the findings of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while Secretary of State. Comey stated there was evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information; however, the judgment of the FBI was that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. The Director explained the FBI's findings and the reasons for recommending no criminal charges against Secretary Clinton. |
| October 16, 2016 | The FBI and its partners around the world concluded Operation Cross Country X with the recovery of 82 sexually exploited juveniles and the arrests of 239 traffickers and other individuals. The FBI-led Operation Cross Country, held regularly between 2008 and 2022, recovers underage trafficking victims and draws attention to the problem of sex trafficking at home and abroad. |
| December 16, 2016 | Lawrence Nassar-a long-time physician who had served as the doctor for the U.S. women's national gymnastics team-was arrested following an investigation by the FBI and its partners. More than 37,000 images of child sexual abuse material were found on his computer. Nassar ultimately pleaded guilty to child pornography charges and admitted molesting numerous minors. The FBI was later faulted for not responding appropriately and effectively to allegations against Nassar reported to the agency beginning in 2015. The FBI made changes to ensure that such serious allegations are promptly addressed with the utmost seriousness and care according to policies and procedures. |
| March 15, 2017 | Two Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers and two criminal hackers were charged in connection with one of the largest cyber intrusions in U.S. history. The intrusion compromised the information of at least 500 million Yahoo accounts beginning in January 2014. One of the hackers was arrested in Canada; he pleaded guilty in November 2017. |
| May 9, 2017 | President Donald Trump dismissed Director James Comey. Eight days later, on May 17, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel by the Department of Justice to oversee the previously confirmed FBI investigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters. The special counsel's report was submitted to the attorney general on March 22, 2019. |
| July 5, 2017 | AlphaBay-the largest marketplace on the Darknet, where hundreds of thousands of criminals anonymously bought and sold drugs, weapons, hacking tools, stolen identities, and a host of other illegal goods and services-was shut down. The takedown was a result of a sophisticated and coordinated effort by law enforcement across the globe. The site's creator and administrator-a 25-year-old Canadian citizen named Alexandre Cazes living in Thailand-was arrested by Thai authorities on behalf of the U.S. A week later, Cazes apparently took his own life while in custody in Thailand. |
| August 2, 2017 | Christopher Wray became the eighth Director of the FBI. Wray had previously served in multiple high-level positions in the Department of Justice, playing a leadership role in the department's post-9/11 efforts to combat terrorism, espionage, and cybercrime. |
| Fall 2017 | The FBI established a Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) to identify and counteract malign foreign influence operations targeting the United States. |
| October 1, 2017 | Stephen Craig Paddock fired into a crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, from the 32nd floor of an adjacent hotel. Paddock killed 60 people and injured more than 400 others in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Paddock committed suicide at the scene before law enforcement arrived. The FBI supported the ensuing investigation and concluded in 2019 that Paddock acted alone with "no single or clear motivating factor" behind his attack. |
| February 14, 2018 | Nikolas Cruz killed 17 students and staff at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Two days later, the FBI announced that it had been given information via its tip line about Cruz's gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting. Internal review determined that FBI protocols were not followed regarding the information and that the Miami Field Office was not informed about the report. |
| February 22, 2018 | The FBI joined the attorney general in announcing what was billed as the largest coordinated sweep of elder fraud cases in history. The initiative resulted in charges against more than 250 suspects who collectively victimized more than one million mostly elderly Americans. The victims lost more than half a billion dollars. |
| April 3, 2018 | Attorney General Sessions announced "Operation Disarray," a joint effort of the Department of Justice, FBI, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service to target vendors and buyers of opioids and cocaine on the Darknet. This operation was the first coordinated action by the new Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement (J-CODE) team. |
| April 24, 2018 | Serial murderer/rapist Joseph James DeAngelo, Jr. was arrested by Sacramento law enforcement. DeAngelo-a former police officer known as the East Area Rapist and later as the Original Night Stalker and the Golden State Killer-murdered at least 13 people and raped as many as 50 people. He was captured after investigators used DNA investigative genealogy to narrow the pool of suspects and ultimately identify DeAngelo. In 2020, he received multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole. |
| November 20, 2018 | The FBI announced the official launch of the National Use-of-Force Data Collection. The first of its kind, the program is administered in partnership with law enforcement agencies to provide nationwide statistics on law enforcement use-of-force incidents. The FBI began collecting this data on January 1, 2019. |
| November 28, 2018 | Department of Justice and FBI officials announced that two Iranian men had been charged with deploying a sinister type of ransomware that crippled the operations of hospitals, municipalities, public institutions, and other critical networks in the U.S. and Canada. The toll of these cyberattacks, which lasted from 2015 until September 2018, included more than 230 entities infected, $6 million in ransom payments extorted, and an estimated $30 billion in damages to the affected public and private institutions. |
| December 20, 2018 | Indictments were unsealed against two alleged hackers-Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong-associated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security. The pair allegedly conducted extensive hacking campaigns and secretly stole hundreds of gigabytes of sensitive data from companies in a diverse range of industries, such as health care, biotechnology, finance, manufacturing, and oil and gas. |
| February 13, 2019 | Following a Bureau investigation, an indictment charging Monica Elfriede Witt and four Iranian nationals was unsealed in the District of Columbia. Witt, a former counterintelligence agent who defected to Iran in 2013, was alleged to have assisted Iranian intelligence services in targeting her former fellow agents in the U.S. intelligence community. Witt is also alleged to have disclosed the code name and classified mission of a U.S. Department of Defense Special Access Program. |
| March 12, 2019 | Dozens of individuals allegedly involved in a nationwide conspiracy that facilitated cheating on college entrance exams and the admission of students to elite universities as purported athletic recruits were arrested by federal agents in multiple states and charged in federal court in Boston. Athletic coaches from Yale, Stanford, USC, Wake Forest, and Georgetown, among others, were implicated, as well as parents and exam administrators. |
| July 5, 2019 | High-profile financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. The indictment alleged that Epstein sexually exploited and abused dozens of underage girls by enticing them to engage in sex acts with him in exchange for money. Epstein was found dead in his jail cell on August 10, 2019. |
| October 6, 2019 | The FBI confirmed that Samuel Little is the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. Little confessed to killing at least 93 women between 1970 and 2005. The Bureau confirmed many of the murders. In November 2018, the FBI began releasing information-including a mapped list of cases and portraits of victims drawn by Little-to help identify additional victims. In 2014, Little had been convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. He died in custody on December 30, 2020. |
| 2020-Present | |
| March 9, 2020 | The FBI opened a new Central Records Complex in Winchester, Virginia, to consolidate the storage of truckloads of archived records housed at each of the FBI's 56 field offices and other sites. The 256,000 square-foot warehouse complex and its state-of-the-art automated storage and retrieval system-deploying an army of robots-is one of the biggest in the world. |
| May 25, 2020 | George Floyd was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground for approximately nine minutes. Chauvin was arrested and later convicted in state court for the murder. In a case investigated by the FBI, Chauvin also pleaded guilty in December 2021 to two violations of a federal civil rights statute. Floyd's murder triggered a series of non-violent protests and some criminal activity across the nation. |
| August 13, 2020 | The Justice Department announced the dismantling of three terrorist financing cyber-enabled campaigns, involving the al-Qassam Brigades (the military arm of Hamas), al Qaeda, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). These actions represented the government's largest-ever seizure of cryptocurrency in the terrorism context. The investigation was the work of the FBI's field offices in Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles, along with components of the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security. |
| January 1, 2021 | To improve the overall quality of crime data collected by law enforcement, the FBI retired the Summary Reporting System and transitioned to a National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)-only data collection. |
| January 6, 2021 | An unprecedented attack occurred at the U.S. Capitol building while Congress attempted to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Partnered with other responding law enforcement agencies, the FBI deployed tactical teams to gain control of the area and offer protection to congressional members and staff. Over the next 21 months, the Bureau and its partners arrested more than 880 people for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 270 people charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. |
| April 2021 | The FBI appointed its first chief diversity officer to lead the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which was established by the Bureau in 2012. |
| June 7, 2021 | The FBI successfully seized $2.3 million in cryptocurrency allegedly representing the proceeds of a ransom payment to individuals in a Russia-based cybercrime group known as DarkSide that targeted Colonial Pipeline, resulting in critical infrastructure being taken out of operation. |
| June 8, 2021 | A wave of hundreds of arrests that began in Australia and stretched across Europe culminated with the unsealing of an indictment in San Diego charging 17 foreign nationals with distributing thousands of encrypted communication devices to criminal syndicates. As part of the case-dubbed Operation Trojan Shield-the FBI for the first time operated its own encrypted device company, called "ANOM," that was promoted by criminal groups across the globe. These criminals sold more than 12,000 ANOM encrypted devices and services to more than 300 criminal syndicates operating in over 100 countries. |
| FBI TIMELINE | |
