FBI : Year in Review A look back at the challenges and triumphs of 2023
New York – Rashad Alkhader – Free Yemen Eye – From News FBI
“The FBI works tirelessly every day
to protect the American people from a dizzying array of threats.” “And we don’t do this work alone.”
In 2023, the FBI faced a growing and evolving threat spectrum—from an uptick in violent and bias-motivated crimes to increasingly elaborate cyberattacks to a rise in more potent drugs like fentanyl. A look back over the past 12 months shows the diversity of law enforcement and intelligence challenges facing the 115-year-old Bureau.
While the year opened with the FBI and our international partners dismantling an advanced ransomware network that cost victims more than $100 million, the Bureau’s 38,000 agents, analysts, and professional staff remained fully focused on working with all our partner agencies to carry out the FBI’s broad mission to protect Americans and uphold the Constitution.
“The men and women of the FBI work tirelessly every day to protect the American people from what is really a staggering array of threats,” Director Christopher Wray said in remarks to a Congressional panel in July. “And we don’t do that work alone.”
To achieve its mission, the Bureau last year relied on more than 750 FBI-led task forces composed of more than 6,000 state and local task force officers. Moreover, the public continues to be the FBI’s force multiplier in exposing potential crime and terror threats, having submitted more than 1.4 million tips to the Bureau’s National Threat Operations Center (tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CAll-FBI), including 1,479 “threat-to-life” leads related to school-shooting threats.
Here’s a look at how the FBI—working, as always, with partners—addressed some of its most significant priorities and challenges in 2023:
Cybercrime
FBI-led operations dismantled 18 criminal cyber operations—and disrupted another 285—in the fiscal year that ended September 30. More than $200 million in assets were seized or forfeited in operations that netted 202 arrests and 139 convictions. The figures themselves, however, don’t fully illustrate the breadth of the cyber takedowns, which occurred nearly every month of the past year and revealed tens of thousands of victims worldwide. Some of the biggest cases were:
- Hive Network: The Hive ransomware group targeted more than 1,500 victims in over 80 countries around the world, including hospitals, school districts, financial firms, and critical infrastructure. The FBI penetrated Hive’s computer networks, captured its decryption keys, and offered them to victims worldwide, preventing victims from having to pay $130 million in ransom. Details
- Qakbot: In one of the largest ever actions against a botnet (a network of compromised computers), the FBI gained lawful access to Qakbot’s infrastructure and identified over 700,000 infected computers worldwide—including more than 200,000 in the U.S. “The FBI neutralized this far-reaching criminal supply chain, cutting it off at the knees,” said Director Wray. Details
- Genesis Market: Disrupted the dark web marketplace that offered access to data stolen from over 1.5 million compromised computers around the world, containing over 80 million account access credentials. Market users were located all over the world; investigators worked to identify the most prolific users, which resulted in hundreds of leads being sent to FBI field offices and overseas partners. The disruption, announced in April, involved 45 of the FBI’s 56 field offices. Details
- Snake Malware Network: Neutralized a global peer-to-peer network of computers compromised by malware called Snake. For nearly 20 years, a unit within the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has used versions of the Snake malware to steal sensitive documents from hundreds of computer systems in at least 50 countries. 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.
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.
