FBI Director Kash Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the bureau has apprehended every fugitive on its Top 10 Most Wanted list during President Trump's second term, a feat Patel says no prior FBI leadership has accomplished.
Patel delivered the announcement Tuesday during a hearing before the committee in Washington, correcting Chairman Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican, who had opened by praising the FBI for capturing nine of the ten most wanted fugitives. Patel had a higher number. The tenth capture, he told senators, happened over the weekend in Venezuela, and the suspect was already en route back to American soil.
The fugitive is Anibal Alexander Canelon Aguirre, whom the FBI identifies as its first-ever "cyber fugitive." The bureau told Fox News Digital that Aguirre led a large international conspiracy to steal millions of dollars from financial institutions in support of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua through an ATM jackpotting scheme dating back to at least 2024. ATM jackpotting is a method in which criminals exploit software or hardware vulnerabilities to force cash machines to dispense money on command.
Grassley's opening remarks credited the FBI with nine captures. Patel wasted no time setting the record straight:
"Mr. Chairman, I'm proud to announce today, and I hate to correct you, we haven't captured nine of the top 10 most [wanted] individuals on our list. We've captured 10."
He followed with detail on Aguirre's arrest:
"Just this past weekend, we captured a thug down in Venezuela who was on our most wanted list and on the run for years. He has been captured, apprehended and is on his way back to the United States of America. That's 10 of 10. Nobody in the FBI history has done that."
Patel also drew a direct comparison with the prior administration's record, telling the committee that the FBI under his leadership captured "more than two and a half times the number of the top 10 most wanted fugitives on the FBI's list from the prior administration." The exact baseline figure from the Biden years was not specified during the hearing.
The Tren de Aragua connection adds a layer that should interest anyone following the broader crackdown on transnational gang activity. The gang, rooted in Venezuela's prison system, has expanded across Latin America and into U.S. cities, and its name has surfaced repeatedly in federal enforcement actions. Aguirre's alleged role, bankrolling the organization through a sophisticated cyber-fraud operation, marks a different kind of threat than the street-level violence more commonly associated with the group.
Patel's leadership at the FBI has drawn both praise and scrutiny. Earlier in his tenure, FOIA records revealed he directed FBI staff to identify and respond to his social media critics, a move that raised questions about internal priorities.
Beyond the Most Wanted captures, Patel used the hearing to lay out a broader set of crime statistics. He told senators the national murder rate has dropped 20 points, though he did not specify the precise baseline or timeframe for that figure beyond the current administration's tenure.
The city-level numbers he cited were more concrete. Memphis, which Patel described as having had the highest per capita homicide rate in the country, achieved a 50 percent reduction in homicides this year. He credited "the president's task force" for that result, though the formal name and structure of the task force were not detailed during testimony.
Baltimore, he said, reached its lowest mid-year homicide numbers in recorded history. And Washington, D.C., is on track for its lowest homicide figures since 1990.
Those are not small claims. If the numbers hold up under independent review, they represent a generational shift in public safety for cities that have struggled with violent crime for decades. Patel framed the results as a collective effort.
"Taking the murder rate down 20 points is no easy effort. It requires a team lift, state, local and international partners."
The FBI's operational tempo under Patel has extended well beyond fugitive captures. His bureau secured a record-setting FIFA World Cup without a single major attack, and agents have continued to disrupt domestic terror plots across the country.
Patel added that the FBI created a new Top 10 Most Wanted Fraudsters list during the current administration and has already captured six of those ten targets. The names of the six captured fraudsters were not disclosed during the hearing.
That list represents a relatively new enforcement priority. One recent case that fits the pattern: the FBI arrested one of its most wanted fraudsters in India after an alleged $600,000 food-stamp scam, illustrating the international reach of these operations.
The creation of a dedicated fraudster list signals a deliberate pivot toward financial crime, an area where federal enforcement has historically lagged behind the scale of the problem. Whether the remaining four targets are apprehended will test whether the pace is sustainable.
Patel told senators that Aguirre "is on his way back to the United States of America," but the specific legal mechanism, whether extradition, deportation, or some other arrangement with Venezuelan authorities, was not addressed during the hearing. No case number, indictment, or specific charges were detailed publicly.
The fact that the capture took place in Venezuela is itself notable. The U.S. has had a complicated and often hostile diplomatic relationship with the Maduro government, and securing custody of a fugitive on Venezuelan soil suggests either direct cooperation or an operation conducted through intermediary channels. Patel did not elaborate on the logistics.
Patel himself has faced political headwinds during his tenure. He was called to the White House earlier amid questions over taxpayer-funded travel, and his management style has drawn attention from both allies and critics on Capitol Hill.
But the results Patel presented Tuesday are difficult to dismiss. Capturing all ten fugitives on the FBI's most prominent list is a concrete, measurable outcome, not a talking point or a promise. The FBI has also continued to foil domestic terror plots, including an ISIS-inspired bombing attempt targeting the New York State Capitol.
For all the numbers Patel delivered, several gaps remain. The names of the other nine Most Wanted fugitives captured, along with the dates and locations of their arrests, were not disclosed during the hearing. The identities of the six captured fraudsters are also unknown publicly. And the 20-point drop in the murder rate, the broadest and most consequential claim Patel made, lacks a stated baseline, making independent verification difficult without additional data.
None of that erases what was announced. But it does mean the full picture depends on follow-up reporting and, ideally, the FBI releasing the underlying data for public review. Accountability runs in both directions: the bureau deserves credit for results, and the public deserves the receipts, the records, to confirm them.
When a federal agency delivers measurable outcomes and its director is willing to put specific numbers on the record before a Senate committee, that is the kind of accountability taxpayers have a right to expect, and too rarely get.
