FBI DIRECTOR KASH PATEL: One year later, crime is down and America is safer

On February 20, 2025, I had the honor of being appointed the ninth Director of Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In that time, a lot happened. Under the president Donald TrumpU.S. leadership, the FBI, and our partners at the state, local, and federal levels have helped deliver one of the safest periods America has seen in decades.

When I sat before the Senate for confirmation, I promised to refocus the FBI on its core mission: crushing violent crimes, defending the homeland, promoting transparency, and rebuilding public trust. A year later, my team and I work every day to turn those words into action. We have achieved historic results.

From 2024 to 2025, the FBI saw a 197% increase in arrests, from 34,000 to 67,000. We disrupted 1,800 gangs and criminal enterprises, a 210% increase. Agents seized more than 2,100 kilograms of deadly fentanyl — enough to kill 150 million Americans — an increase of 31%. That mission also extended abroad, as my trip to Beijing resulted in a historic agreement to stop the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals at the source, directly targeting the supply chains that poison American communities. Arrests linked to nihilistic violent extremism, including perpetrators who assault children, rose by 490%. More than 6,200 child victims were found, an increase of 22%. Espionage arrests increased by 35%. We’ve captured six of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives in one year – two more than the entire previous administration – a group that has been on the run collectively for more than 50 years, including Ryan Wedge. At the national level, The murder rate dropped by a record amount 20%, a level not seen in a century.

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President Trump has allowed good cops to be cops while giving us the resources to do the job. The results speak for themselves.

But the success of this administration and the FBI goes far beyond numbers. Over the past year, there have been quiet but important shifts within the office — changes that many Americans may never see on news feeds or social media, but which have paid big dividends.

Since day one, we have redirected the FBI to confront modern threats with four clear priorities: crushing violent crime, defending the homeland, restoring the public’s trust, and enforcing tough regulatory accountability. Under the previous administration, violent crimes barely made the FBI’s top 10 priorities. Today, this has become a major focus, which is why arrests for violent crimes will double to more than 30,000 in 2025.

Diverting resources to homeland defense has helped us capture some of the world’s most wanted criminals: Nicolás Maduro, wanted by the Department of Justice on drug-related terrorism charges; Muhammad Sharifullah, allegedly a key ISIS operative in the suicide attack at the Monastery Gate in Kabul; and Zubair Al-Bakoush, one of the main conspirators in the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans: Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glenn Doherty. We also thwarted and stopped three separate terrorist plots during the holiday season, preventing potential mass casualty attacks and ensuring Americans could celebrate safely.

To restore transparency and oversight, we released more than 40,000 pages of documents to Congress in our first year alone, a level of disclosure that represents more than double the total document production produced by my predecessors.

We have reduced the Bureau’s dependence on the bloated bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. and returned safety and security resources to Main Street America. We have moved 1,000 agents from the National Capital Region to field offices across the country, with an additional 1,000 intelligence and support personnel following us this year. We have also activated our advanced training facility in Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabamaincluding the first-ever counter-drone training program for law enforcement.

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We have restructured operations so that field offices no longer report through the single bottleneck at headquarters. Dividing offices into regional structures has increased accountability and responsiveness to the public. We removed units that failed the mission, including the politicized CR-15 division, removed individuals who behaved unethically, and rebuilt leadership around results.

The FBI is now faster and more responsive, with a greater focus on technology. We created the Director’s Strategic Information Center (DSIC), a completely revamped information center focused on proactive threat identification and 24/7 monitoring of critical incidents to dramatically improve response times. We have also launched a Technology Working Group, led by… Dan BonginoTo help strengthen national security infrastructure through artificial intelligence and enhance biometric coordination with interagency partners. Rather than continuing a patchwork approach, we engaged private sector partners to rebuild core systems and expanded the FBI’s leadership role in the National Counterintelligence Task Force to better coordinate efforts against hostile intelligence actors targeting the United States.

After decades of delay and waste, President Trump facilitated the closure of the Hoover Building project. We scrapped a minimum $5 billion taxpayer-funded plan that could not have opened for at least a decade, and instead moved toward using the existing Ronald Reagan Building, providing a secure, modern headquarters at a fraction of the cost to the American people.

Perhaps most importantly, we have made it a priority for field commanders to work alongside state and local law enforcement. Last year, we created a series of Homeland Security Task Forces – historic partnerships with state officials focused on removing violent criminals from America’s streets. In Virginia, these efforts resulted in nearly 600 arrests in just one month. We replicated this model in Memphis and Washington, D.C., as part of the President’s Task Force. In these two cities alone, violent crime decreased by 30%. Homicides are down nearly 70% in DC and 50% in Memphis. We also created the first Law Enforcement Partner Engagement Council (LEPEC), giving local law enforcement a permanent seat at the table within the FBI.

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By the numbers, President Trump’s FBI had a record year. But the institutional changes implemented over the past year go far beyond statistics, arrests or headlines. We have rebuilt and reshaped the FBI into an organization designed to better serve the American people and keep the country safer for decades to come, along with our partners at the Department of Justice who continue to prosecute bad actors and hold them accountable.

As for us, we will continue to put the mission first.

Click here to read more from FBI Director Kash Patel