Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News
Violent Crime
The FBI’s top priorities are national security threats, but the Bureau plays a key role in combating violent crime in big cities and local communities across the United States. The threats vary widely, from bank robberies and art crime to human trafficking, gang violence, crimes against children, and drug trafficking.
The Bureau’s Criminal Division this year accounted for more than 18,000 arrests and almost 10,000 indictments in violent criminal cases. The myriad FBI units targeting suspected criminals disrupted more than 2,500 operations and dismantled another 314. They located 2,401 children in the 12-month period that ended in September and were involved in more than 12,000 drug seizures. “To truly appreciate the impact the FBI and our partners are having,” Director Wray has said, “you’ve got to look at the cases.”
Here’s a look at just a few significant cases and accomplishments:
- Operation Ghost Busted: 76 individuals were charged with involvement in a drug trafficking operation that distributed large amounts of high-grade methamphetamine, along with fentanyl, heroin, and alprazolam (Xanax) in the greater Glynn County area of Georgia. Details
- Operation SpecTor: This coordinated operation spanning nine countries and dozens of law enforcement agencies across the U.S., Europe, and South America targeted darknet drug markets. Efforts resulted in seizures of more than $50 million in cash and virtual currency, 1,875 pounds of potentially lethal pills and other drugs, and 288 arrests. Details
- Operation Cross Country: The FBI, working with partners, identified and located 200 victims of sex trafficking during a two-week nationwide enforcement campaign in July. The operation also led to identification or arrest of 126 suspects of child sexual exploitation and human trafficking offenses and 68 suspects of trafficking were identified or arrested. Also located were 59 minor victims of child sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation offenses and 59 actively missing children. Details
- January 6: In what the Department of Justice has called the FBI’s largest ever investigation, the Bureau continues to seek the public’s assistance in in identifying individuals who made unlawful entry into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. In the 34 months since the attack on the Capitol, more than 1,200 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 400 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. Details
- Transnational Organized Crime: The FBI is focused on the cartels trafficking narcotics across the border. The FBI has 328 pending investigations linked to cartel leadership; 78 of those are along the southern border.
Multiple field offices conducted operations this year targeting gangs or criminal networks. In July, for example, an FBI-led joint operation targeting violent criminals in Tucson, Arizona, resulted in 88 arrests. A month earlier, in Erie, Pennsylvania, an FBI-led Safe Streets task force targeted a local drug gang. Also last summer, an FBI-led operation in Dallas seized more than 540 grams of cocaine, more than 1,100 grams of methamphetamine, and more than seven grams of fentanyl, along with nine firearms and over $10,000 in cash.