STATEMENT OF
CHRISTOPHER A. WRAY
DIRECTOR
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
BEFORE THE
HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AT A HEARING ENTITLED
“OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION”
PRESENTED
JULY 24, 2024
S
TATEMENT OF
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HRISTOPHER
A. W
RAY
D
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P
RESENTED
J
ULY
24, 2024
Good afternoon, Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Nadler, and Members of the
Committee. I want to begin by offering my condolences on the passing of Representative
Jackson Lee, who served the people of Texas in this body, and on this Committee, for so long.
Thank you all for inviting me to appear before you today. I would like to acknowledge the
recent tragic events in Butler, Pennsylvania. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”)
continues to conduct a full and thorough investigation of the attempted assassination of
former President Trump. I recognize the devastating impact on all the victims and families
who were there that day to exercise one of our most fundamental Constitutional rights.
I am here today on behalf of the men and women of the FBI, who tackle some of the
most complex national security and criminal threats every day with perseverance,
professionalism, and integrity – sometimes at the greatest of costs. I am extremely proud of
their service and commitment to the FBI’s mission and to ensuring the safety and security of
communities throughout our nation.
Despite the many challenges our FBI workforce faces, I am immensely proud of their
dedication to protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. The list of
diverse threats we face underscores the complexity and breadth of the FBI’s mission: to protect
the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States. I am prepared to discuss
with you what the FBI is doing to address these threats and what the FBI is doing to ensure that
our people adhere to the highest of standards while it conducts its mission.
K ey Threats and Challenges
Over the past year, the threats facing our nation have escalated. These threats emanate
from myriad sources – nation-states, hostile foreign intelligence services, and criminals. They
range from foreign terrorist organizations to sophisticated cyber-attacks, from internet-
facilitated sexual exploitation of children to human trafficking, from violent gangs and criminal
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organizations trafficking dangerous drugs like fentanyl, to public corruption and corporate
fraud. Keeping pace with these threats is a significant challenge for the FBI, especially as
technology evolves and allows adversaries to use the Internet and social media to facilitate
illegal activities, recruit followers, encourage terrorist attacks and other illicit actions, and
disperse information on building improvised explosive devices and other means to attack the
United States. Cyber actors also exploit technology to infiltrate U.S. networks, steal our
intellectual property, sensitive business information, and secrets, carry out transnational
repression and foreign malign influence operations, spread malware, hold our critical
infrastructure at risk, and create chaos. The breadth of these threats and challenges are as
complex as at any time in our history, and the consequences of not responding to and
countering threats and challenges have never been greater.
To meet these threats, we have built, and are continuously enhancing, a workforce that
possesses the skills and knowledge to deal with the complex threats and challenges we face
today — and will face tomorrow. We are building a leadership cadre that views innovation as
key to staying ahead of the threats facing our nation.
Today’s FBI is a national security and law enforcement organization that uses, collects,
and shares intelligence in everything we do. Each FBI employee understands that, to defeat the
key threats facing our nation, we must constantly strive to be more efficient and more effective.
Just as our adversaries continue to evolve, so, too, must the FBI. We live in a time of acute and
persistent terrorist and criminal threats to our national security, our economy, and indeed our
communities. These diverse threats underscore the complexity and breadth of the FBI’s
mission.
N ational Security
Top Terrorism Threats
Protecting the American people from terrorism—both international and domestic—
remains the FBI’s number one priority. The threat from terrorism is as persistent and complex
as ever. As we saw in October with the devastating attack in Israel, terrorist actors are still
very intent on using violence and brutality to spread their ideologies. We are in an
environment where the threats from international terrorism (“IT”), domestic terrorism (“DT”),
and state-sponsored terrorism are all simultaneously elevated.
In recent years, the greatest terrorism threat to our homeland has been posed by lone
actors or small cells of individuals who typically radicalize to violence online and use easily
accessible weapons to attack soft targets. In addition to this threat, which has not diminished,
we are also increasingly concerned that foreign terrorist organizations will enable or direct
attacks on U.S. soil. We see the lone offender threat with both domestic violent extremists
(“DVEs”) and homegrown violent extremists (“HVEs”), two distinct threats, both primarily
located in the United States who typically radicalize and mobilize to violence on their own.
DVEs are individuals based and operating primarily within the United States or its territories
without direction or inspiration from a foreign terrorist group or other foreign power who seek
to further political or social goals through unlawful acts of force or violence. In comparison,
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HVEs are individuals of any citizenship who have lived or operated primarily in the United
States or its territories, who advocate, are engaged in, or are preparing to engage in
ideologically motivated terrorist activities in furtherance of political or social objectives
promoted by a foreign terrorist organization but are acting independently of direction by a
foreign terrorist organization (“FTO”).
While we assist our Israeli colleagues and we understand the global implications of the
ongoing conflict in Israel, we are paying heightened attention to how the events abroad could
directly affect and inspire people to commit violence here in the Homeland. Terrorist
organizations worldwide, as well as individuals attracted to violence, have praised Hamas
horrific attack on Israeli civilians. We have seen violent extremists across ideologies seeking
to target Jewish and Muslim people and institutions through physical assaults, bomb threats,
and online calls for mass casualty attacks. Our top concern stems from lone offenders inspired
by—or reacting to—the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as they pose the most likely threat to
Americans, especially Jewish, Muslim, and Arab-American communities in the United States.
We have seen an increase in reported threats to Jewish and Muslim people, institutions, and
houses of worship here in the United States, and we are moving quickly to mitigate them.
Presently, while we have no information to indicate that Hamas has the intent or
capability to conduct operations inside the United States, though we cannot, and do not,
discount that possibility, we are especially concerned about the possibility of Hamas supporters
engaging in violence on the group’s behalf. As always, we are concerned with any FTO that
may exploit the attacks in Israel as a tool to mobilize their followers around the world. In
recent years, there have been several events and incidents in the United States that were
purportedly motivated, at least in part, by the conflict between Israel and Hamas. These have
included the targeting of individuals, houses of worship, and institutions associated with the
Jewish and Muslim faiths with acts of physical assault, vandalism, or harassment. Anti-
Semitism and anti-Islamic sentiment permeate many violent extremist ideologies and serve as a
primary driver for attacks by a diverse set of violent extremists who pose a persistent threat to
Jewish and Muslim communities and institutions in the United States and abroad. FTOs have
exploited previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas via media outlets and online
communications to call on their supporters located in the United States to conduct attacks.
Some violent extremists have used times of heightened tensions to incite violence against
religious minorities, targeting both Jewish and Muslim Americans.
The FBI remains concerned about the intent of FTOs, such as the Islamic State of Iraq
and ash-Sham (“ISIS”) and al-Qaida and their affiliates, to carry out or inspire large-scale
attacks in the United States, as well as the possibility that FTOs may exploit any successful
method of entry to advance a terrorist plot.
Despite its loss of physical territory in Iraq and Syria, ISIS remains relentless in its
campaign of violence against the United States and its partners—here at home and overseas.
ISIS and its supporters continue to aggressively promote its hate-fueled rhetoric and attract
like-minded violent extremists with a willingness to conduct attacks against the United States
and our interests abroad. ISIS’ successful use of social media and messaging applications to
attract individuals is of continued concern to us. Like other foreign terrorist groups, ISIS
advocates for lone offender attacks in the United States and Western countries via videos and
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other English language propaganda that have specifically advocated for attacks against
civilians, the military, law enforcement, and intelligence community personnel.
Al-Qaida also maintains its desire to conduct and to inspire large-scale attacks.
Because continued pressure has degraded some of the group’s senior leadership, we assess that,
in the near term, al-Qaida is more likely to continue to focus on cultivating its international
affiliates and supporting small-scale, readily achievable attacks in regions such as East and
West Africa. Nevertheless, propaganda from al-Qaida leaders continues to seek individuals
inspired to conduct their own attacks in the United States and other Western nations.
Iran and its global proxies and partners, including Iraqi Shia militant groups, attack and
plot against the United States and our allies throughout the Middle East. Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (“IRGC-QF”) has also provided support to militant
resistance groups and terrorist organizations. And Iran has supported Lebanese Hizballah and
other terrorist groups. Hizballah has sent operatives to build terrorist infrastructure worldwide.
The arrests of individuals in the United States allegedly linked to Hizballah’s main overseas
terrorist arm, and their intelligence-collection and -procurement efforts, demonstrate
Hizballah’s interest in long-term contingency planning activities here in the Homeland.
Hizballah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has also threatened retaliation for the death of
IRGC-QF Commander Qassem Soleimani.
While the terrorism threat continues to evolve, the FBI’s resolve to counter that threat
remains constant. We continually adapt and rely heavily on the strength of our Federal, state,
local, Tribal, territorial, and international partnerships to combat all terrorist threats to the
United States and its interests. To that end, we use all available lawful investigative techniques
and methods to combat these threats while continuing to collect, analyze, and share intelligence
concerning the threats posed by violent extremists who desire to harm Americans and U.S.
interests. We will continue to share information and encourage the sharing of information
among our numerous partners via our Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country, and our
legal attaché offices around the world.
In addition to fighting terrorism, countering the proliferation of weapons-of-mass-
destruction materials (“WMD”), technologies, and expertise, preventing their use by any actor,
and securing nuclear and radioactive materials of concern are also top national security
priorities for the FBI. The FBI considers preventing, mitigating, investigating, and responding
to WMD terrorism a “no-fail” mission because a WMD attack could result in substantial
injuries, illness, or loss of lives, and yield significant social, economic, political, and other
national security consequences.
Cyber
The FBI has seen a wider-than-ever range of cyber actors threaten Americans’ safety,
security, and confidence in our digitally connected world. Cybercriminal syndicates and
nation-states continue to innovate, using unique techniques to compromise our networks and
maximize the reach and impact of their operations. Those techniques include selling malware
as a service or targeting vendors to access scores of victims by hacking just one provider.
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These criminals and nation-states believe that they can compromise our networks, steal
our property, extort us, and hold our critical infrastructure at risk without incurring any risk
themselves. In the last few years, we have seen the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“DPRK”), and Russia use cyber operations to target
U.S. research. We have seen the PRC working to obtain controlled dual-use technology, while
developing an arsenal of advanced cyber capabilities that could be used against other countries
in the event of a real-world conflict. And we have seen the disruptive impact a serious supply-
chain compromise can have through the SolarWinds-related intrusions, conducted by the
Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. As these adversaries become more sophisticated, we are
increasingly concerned about our ability to detect specific cyber operations against U.S.
organizations. One of the most worrisome facets is their focus on compromising U.S. critical
infrastructure, especially during a crisis.
Making things even more difficult, there is often no bright line that separates where
nation-state activity ends, and cybercriminal activity begins. Some cybercriminals contract or
sell services to nation-states; some nation-state actors moonlight as cybercriminals to fund
personal activities; and some nation-states are increasingly using tools, such as ransomware,
typically used by criminal actors.
So, as dangerous as nation-states are, we do not have the luxury of focusing only on
them. In the past year, we also have seen cybercriminals target hospitals, medical centers,
educational institutions, and other critical infrastructure for theft or ransomware, causing
massive disruptions to our daily lives. Incidents affecting medical centers have led to the
interruption of computer networks and systems that put patients’ lives at increased risk.
We have also seen the rise of an ecosystem of services dedicated to supporting
cybercrime in exchange for cryptocurrency. Criminals now have new tools to engage in
destructive behavior—for example, deploying ransomware to paralyze entire hospitals, police
departments, and businesses—as well as new means to better conceal their tracks. It is not that
individual malicious cyber actors have necessarily become much more sophisticated, but that
they can now more easily rent sophisticated capabilities.
We must make it harder and more painful for malicious cyber actors and criminals to
carry on their malicious activities. As the lead federal agency for threat response, the FBI
works seamlessly with domestic and international partners to defend their networks, attribute
malicious activity, sanction bad behavior, and take the fight to our adversaries overseas. We
must impose consequences on cyber adversaries and use our collective law enforcement and
intelligence capabilities to do so through joint and enabled operations sequenced for maximum
impact. And we must continue to work with the Department of State and other key departments
and agencies to ensure that our foreign partners are able and willing to cooperate in our efforts
to disrupt perpetrators of cybercrime.
An example of this approach is the coordinated international operation announced in
April 2023 against Genesis Market, a criminal online marketplace offering access to data stolen
from over 1.5 million compromised computers around the world containing over 80 million
account access credentials. Genesis Market was also a prolific initial access broker (“IAB”) in
the cyber-crime world, providing criminals a user-friendly database to search for stolen
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credentials so they could easily infiltrate a victim’s computer. As part of this operation, law
enforcement seized 11 domain names used to support Genesis Market’s infrastructure pursuant
to a warrant authorized by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. A total
of 22 international agencies and 44 FBI field offices assisted the FBI Milwaukee Field Office in
investigating the case. And on April 5, 2023, the U.S. Department of Treasury announced
sanctions against Genesis Market.
As another example, in January 2024, the FBI announced an operation where the FBI
and its partners identified a network of hundreds of compromised routers used by the PRC-
sponsored hacking group known as Volt Typhoon. The botnet enabled China to hide, among
other things, pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation against critical
infrastructure like our communications, energy, transportation, and water sectors. The PRC
took these steps to find and prepare to destroy or degrade the civilian critical infrastructure that
keeps us safe and prosperous. To be extremely clear, cyber threats to our critical infrastructure
represent real-world threats to our physical safety. Working with our partners, the FBI ran a
court-authorized, on-network operation that significantly disrupted this Volt Typhoon botnet
and the access it enabled.
This operation was an important step. But there’s a lot more to do. To quantify what
we are up against: the PRC has a bigger hacking program than every other major nation
combined. In fact, if each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intelligence analysts focused
exclusively on the PRC threat, the PRC’s hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel
by at least 50 to 1.
The FBI is doing everything in its power to combat these threats. In total, we took over
1,000 actions against cyber adversaries in 2023, to include arrests, criminal charges,
convictions, dismantlements, and disruptions, and enabled many more actions through our
dedicated partnerships with the private sector, foreign partners, and with Federal, state, and
local entities. We also provided thousands of individualized threat warnings and disseminated
78 public threat advisories by way of Joint Cybersecurity Advisories, FBI Liaison Alert System
(“FLASH”) reports, Private Industry Notifications (“PINs”), and Public Service
Announcements (“PSAs”)—many of which were jointly authored with other U.S. agencies and
international partners.
In summary, the FBI is engaged in myriad efforts to combat cyber threats, from
improving threat identification and information sharing inside and outside of the government to
developing and retaining new talent, to examining the way we operate to disrupt and defeat
these threats. We take all potential threats to public and private sector systems seriously and
will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.
Foreign Intelligence Threats
Nations such as the PRC, Russia, and Iran are becoming more aggressive and more
capable than ever before. These nations seek to undermine our core democratic, economic,
and scientific institutions, and they employ a growing range of tactics. Defending American
institutions and values against these threats is a national security imperative and a priority for
the FBI.
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With that, the greatest long-term threat to our Nation’s ideas, innovation, and
economic security is from PRC foreign intelligence and economic espionage. By extension, it
is also a threat to our national security. The PRC aspires to reshape the international rules-
based system to its benefit, often with little regard for international norms and laws.
When it comes to economic espionage, the PRC uses every means at its disposal,
blending cyber, human intelligence, diplomacy, corporate transactions, and other pressure on
U.S. companies operating in the PRC, to steal our companies’ innovations. These efforts are
consistent with the PRC’s expressed goals of becoming the preeminent power on the world stage
through technology-enabled economic and military development.
To pursue this goal, the PRC uses human intelligence officers, co-optees, and corrupt
corporate insiders, as well as sophisticated cyber intrusions, pressure on U.S. companies in
China, shell-game corporate transactions, and joint-venture “partnerships” that are anything but
true partnerships. There is nothing traditional about the scale of their theft. It is unprecedented.
American workers and companies are facing a greater, more complex danger than they have
dealt with before. Stolen innovation means stolen jobs, stolen opportunities for American
workers, and stolen national power.
As the lead U.S. counterintelligence agency, the FBI is responsible for detecting and
lawfully countering the actions of foreign intelligence services and organizations as they seek
to adversely affect U.S. national interests. The FBI recognized the need to coordinate similar
efforts across all agencies, and therefore established the National Counterintelligence Task
Force (“NCITF”) in 2019 to create a whole-of-government approach to counterintelligence.
The FBI established the national-level NCITF in the National Capital Region to coordinate,
facilitate, and focus multi-agency counterintelligence operations, and to programmatically
support local Counterintelligence Task Force (“CITF”) operations in each FBI field office.
Combining the authorities and operational capabilities of the U.S. Intelligence Community,
Federal, state, and local law enforcement, and local CITFs, the NCITF coordinates and leads
whole-of-government efforts to defeat hostile intelligence activities targeting the United States.
The Department of Defense (“DoD”) has been a key partner in the NCITF since its
founding. While the FBI has had long-term collaborative relationships with DoD entities such
as the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and
Army Counterintelligence, the NCITF has allowed us to enhance our collaboration with each
other for greater impact. We plan to emphasize this whole-of-government approach moving
forward as a powerful formula to mitigate modern counterintelligence threats.
In recent years, we have seen a rise in efforts by authoritarian regimes to interfere with
freedom of expression and punish dissidents, political opponents, and others abroad. These
acts of repression cross national borders, often reaching into the United States. The
governments of China, Russia, and Iran, and their proxies stalk, intimidate, and harass
expatriates or dissidents who speak against the regimes from within the United States and
elsewhere, as well as other individuals these governments view as threats to their regime.
Transnational repression can occur in different forms, including assault, kidnapping,
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and murder. Governments use transnational repression tactics to silence the voices of their
own or former citizens, U.S. residents, and family members living abroad who are critical of
their regimes. This sort of repressive behavior is antithetical to our values. People from all
over the world are drawn to the United States by the promise of living in a free and open
society that adheres to the rule of law. To ensure that this promise remains a reality, we must
continue to use all of our tools to block authoritarian regimes that seek to extend their tactics of
repression beyond their own shores.
In addition, our Nation is confronting multifaceted foreign threats seeking both to
influence our national policies and public opinion, and to harm our national dialogue and
debate. The FBI and our interagency partners remain focused on foreign malign influence
operations, including subversive, undeclared, coercive, and criminal actions used by foreign
governments in their attempts to sway U.S. citizens’ preferences and perspectives, shift U.S.
policies, increase discord in the United States, and undermine the American people’s
confidence in our democratic institutions and processes.
The domestic counterintelligence environment is more complex than ever. We face a
persistent and pervasive national security threat from foreign adversaries, particularly the
governments of China, Russia, and Iran, who conduct sophisticated intelligence operations
using coercion, subversion, malign influence, cyber and economic espionage, traditional
spying, and non-traditional human intelligence collection. Together, they pose a continuous
threat to U.S. national security and our economy by targeting strategic technologies, industries,
sectors, and critical infrastructure. Historically, these asymmetric national security threats
involved foreign intelligence service officers seeking U.S. government and U.S. Intelligence
Community information. Now, however, the FBI has observed foreign adversaries employing
a wider range of nontraditional collection techniques, including the use of human collectors not
affiliated with intelligence services, foreign investment in critical U.S. sectors, and infiltration
of U.S. supply chains. The FBI continues to adjust its counterintelligence priorities to address
this evolution.
Criminal Threats
The United States faces many criminal threats, including financial and health care fraud,
transnational and regional organized criminal enterprises, crimes against children, human
trafficking, and public corruption. Criminal organizations—domestic and international—and
individual criminal activity represent a significant threat to security and safety in communities
across the Nation.
A critical tool in protecting the Nation from those who wish to do harm is the National
Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. The goal of NICS is to ensure the timely
transfer of firearms to eligible gun buyers while striving to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
Mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and launched by the FBI on
November 30, 1998, NICS is used by Federal Firearms Licensees (“FFLs”) to determine whether
a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms. NICS receives firearm background checks from
tens of thousands of FFLs and performs research and analysis to determine if available
information demonstrates that the subject of the NICS check is ineligible
to receive a firearm as
described under 18 U.S.C. 922(t). In the first complete month of operation in 1998, a total of
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892,840 firearm background checks were processed. By contrast, in 2023, approximately 2.4
million checks were processed per month, for a total of 29.9 million processed last year.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (“BSCA”), signed into law in June 2022, requires
enhanced NICS background checks for any person under the age of 21 (“U21”). These enhanced
background checks are more labor-intensive but have prevented ineligible persons from
acquiring firearms. As of July 1, 2024, the NICS Section had completed over 273,400 U21
transactions since the additional checks began on October 4, 2022. A total of 254,514
transactions received “proceed” notifications from NICS; 2,709 received “denied” notifications;
812 of which were a direct result of the expanded background checks required under the
provisions of the BSCA. As provisions from the BSCA continue to be implemented, the FBI
expects the volume of NICS transactions to continue to grow. Ensuring the timely processing of
these inquiries is important to ensure law abiding citizens can exercise their right to purchase a
firearm and to protect communities from prohibited, and therefore ineligible, individuals
attempting to acquire a firearm.
Violent Crime
Violent crimes and gang activities exact a high toll on individuals and communities.
Many of today’s gangs are sophisticated and are well organized. They use violence to control
neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug and
gun trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings. These gangs do not limit their illegal
activities to single jurisdictions or communities. The FBI works across such lines, which is vital
to the fight against violent crime in big cities and small towns across the Nation. Every day, FBI
special agents work in partnership with Federal, state, local, territorial, and Tribal officers and
deputies on joint task forces and individual investigations.
FBI joint task forces—Violent Crime Safe Streets, Violent Gang Safe Streets, and Safe
Trails—identify and target major groups operating as criminal enterprises. Much of the FBI’s
criminal intelligence is derived from our state, local, territorial, and Tribal law enforcement
partners, who know their communities inside and out. Joint task forces benefit from FBI
surveillance assets, and our sources track these gangs to identify emerging trends. Through these
multi-subject and multi-jurisdictional investigations, the FBI concentrates its efforts on high-
level groups engaged in patterns of racketeering. This investigative model enables us to target
senior gang leadership and to develop enterprise-based prosecutions.
By way of example, the FBI has dedicated tremendous resources to combat the threat of
violence posed by MS-13. The atypical nature of this gang has required a multi-pronged
approach—we work through our task forces here in the United States, while simultaneously
gathering intelligence from and aiding our international law enforcement partners. We do this
through the FBI’s Transnational Anti-Gang Task Forces (“TAGs”). Established in El Salvador
in 2007 through the FBI’s National Gang Task Force, Legal Attaché San Salvador, and the
Department of State, each TAG is a fully operational unit responsible for the investigation of
MS-13 operating in the northern triangle of Central America and threatening the United States.
This program combines the expertise, resources, and jurisdiction of participating agencies
involved in investigating and countering transnational criminal gang activity in the United States
and Central America. There are now TAGs in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Through
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these collaborating efforts, the FBI has achieved substantial success in countering the MS-13
threat.
We are committed to working with our Federal, state, local, and Tribal partners in a
coordinated effort to reduce violent crime in the United States and to hold violent criminals
accountable.
Transnational Organized Crime (“TOC”)
More than a decade ago, organized crime was characterized by hierarchical organizations,
or families that exerted influence over criminal activities in neighborhoods, cities, or states. But
organized crime has changed dramatically. Today, international criminal enterprises run multi-
national, multi-billion-dollar schemes from start to finish. Modern-day criminal enterprises are
flat, fluid networks with global reach. While still engaged in many of the “traditional” organized
crime activities such as loan-sharking, extortion, and murder, modern criminal enterprises are
now also involved in trafficking counterfeit prescription drugs containing deadly fentanyl,
conducting stock market fraud and manipulation, committing cyber-facilitated bank fraud and
embezzlement, illicit drug and wildlife trafficking, identity theft, human trafficking, money
laundering, alien smuggling, public corruption, weapons trafficking, kidnapping, and other
illegal activities. TOC networks exploit legitimate institutions for critical financial and business
services that enable the storage or transfer of illicit proceeds. Preventing and combating
transnational organized crime demands a concentrated effort by the FBI and Federal, state, local,
territorial, Tribal, and international partners.
As part of our efforts to combat the TOC threat, the FBI is focused on the cartels
trafficking dangerous narcotics, like illicit fentanyl, across our borders. The FBI has over 350
cases linked to cartel leadership, and 91 of those are along the southern border. Additionally, the
FBI actively participates in 18 Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (“OCDETF”)
Strike Forces across the United States, investigating major drug trafficking, money laundering,
and other high-priority TOC networks. On top of that, through our prescription drug initiative
we are pursuing healthcare fraud investigations against medical professionals and pill mills,
through our Safe Streets Task Forces, investigating the gangs and criminal groups responsible for
distributing dangerous substances like illicit fentanyl, and through our Joint Criminal Opioid
Darknet Enforcement team disrupting and dismantling Darknet marketplaces for prescription
opioids and drugs like illicit fentanyl.
While the FBI continues to share intelligence about criminal groups with our partners and
combines resources and expertise to gain a full understanding of each group, the threat of
transnational crime remains a significant and growing threat to national and international security
with implications for public safety, public health, democratic institutions, and economic stability
across the globe. TOC groups increasingly exploit jurisdictional boundaries to conduct their
criminal activities overseas. Furthermore, they are expanding their use of the Darknet to engage
in illegal activity while exploiting emerging technology to traffic illicit drugs and contraband
across international borders and into the United States.
The FBI continues its efforts to combat organized retail theft and other threats to the
United States supply chain. The FBI has eight Major Theft Task Forces located throughout the
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United States. These Major Theft Task Forces are staffed by FBI Special Agents and Task Force
officers who are subject matter experts in investigating interstate transportation of stolen property
matters. The FBI continues to develop and establish additional Major Theft Task Forces to
address emerging threats to industry and the United States supply chain.
Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking
Every year, thousands of children become victims of crimes, whether it results from
kidnappings, violent attacks, sexual abuse, human trafficking, or online predators. The FBI is
uniquely positioned to provide a rapid, proactive, and comprehensive response. We help
identify, locate, and recover child victims. Our strong relationships with Federal, state, local,
territorial, Tribal, and international law enforcement partners also help to identify, prioritize,
investigate, and deter individuals and criminal networks from exploiting children.
But the FBI’s ability to learn about and investigate child sexual exploitation is being
threatened by the proliferation of sites on the Darknet and end-to-end encryption. For example,
currently, there are at least 30 child sexual abuse material (“CSAM”) sites operating openly and
notoriously on the Darknet. Some of these exploitative sites are exclusively dedicated to the
sexual abuse of infants and toddlers. The sites often expand rapidly, with one site obtaining as
many as 200,000 new members within its first few weeks of operation. End-to-end encrypted
apps allow offenders to form groups of like-minded individuals to trade files of CSAM and trade
tips for how to exploit children-—all with no fear of detection.
Another growing area of concern involving the sexual exploitation of children and
adults alike is the explosion in incidents of children, teens, and adults being coerced into sending
explicit images online and being extorted for money, known as financially motivated
“sextortion.” A large percentage of these sextortion schemes originate outside the United States,
primarily in West African countries such as Nigeria and Ivory Coast. The continued
development of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) has made this crime even easier to commit.
Perhaps the most difficult part of a successful sextortion is convincing the child to initially share
a sexually explicit depiction. Now, with AI, offenders can create the sexually explicit depictions
from innocent images available on social media – and then use those created images to extort the
child into creating actual depictions or making a financial payment. The FBI continues to
collaborate with other law enforcement partners and the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children to mitigate this criminal activity and provide the public with informational
alerts and victim resources regarding these crimes.
The FBI has several programs in place to arrest child predators and to recover missing
and endangered children. To this end, the FBI funds or participates in a variety of endeavors and
constructs, including the Innocence Lost National Initiative, the Innocent Images National
Initiative, Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team, Victim Services, over 80 Child
Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Forces, over 90 international Violent Crimes Against
Children Task Force officers, and numerous community outreach programs to educate parents
and children about safety measures they can follow. Through improved communications, the
FBI collaborates with partners throughout the world quickly, playing an integral role in
preventing crimes against children.
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The Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team is a rapid-response team with
experienced investigators strategically located across the country to quickly respond to child
abductions. Investigators provide a full array of investigative and technical resources during the
most critical time following the abduction of a child, such as the collection and analysis of DNA,
impression, and trace evidence; the processing of digital forensic evidence; and interviewing
expertise.
The FBI also focuses efforts to stop human trafficking of both children and adults,
including both sex trafficking and forced labor. The FBI works collaboratively with law
enforcement partners to disrupt all forms of human trafficking through Human Trafficking Task
Forces nationwide. Over a two-week period in 2023, the FBI and its Federal, state, local, and
tribal partners executed approximately 350 operations to recover potential victims of human
trafficking and other forms of exploitation, and to disrupt potential trafficking and exploitation
crimes. These operations identified and located 59 minors who were potential victims of child
sex trafficking, child sexual exploitation, or related state or federal offenses and located 59
actively missing children. Furthermore, the FBI and its partners located 141 adults who were
identified as potential victims of sexual exploitation, human trafficking, or related state or federal
offenses. In addition to identifying and recovering missing children and potential victims, these
law enforcement actions led to the identification or arrest of 126 suspects implicated in potential
child sexual exploitation, human trafficking, or related state or federal offenses.
While many potential victims of human trafficking encountered or recovered by the FBI
are adult U.S. citizens, foreign nationals, children, and other vulnerable populations are
disproportionately harmed by both sex and labor trafficking. In 2023, the FBI initiated efforts to
develop specialized strategies for identifying and investigating crimes involving forced labor and
transnational trafficking of foreign-national victims into the United States. The FBI and its
partners take a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach to investigating these cases and strive
to ensure the needs of victims are fully addressed at all stages. To accomplish this, the FBI
works in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies and victim specialists on the Federal,
state, local, territorial, and Tribal levels, as well as with a variety of vetted nongovernmental
organizations. Even after the arrest and conviction of human traffickers, the FBI often continues
to work with partner agencies and organizations to assist victims and survivors in moving beyond
their exploitation.
Key Cross-Cutting Capabilities and Capacities
Operational Technologies
As criminal and terrorist threats become more diverse and dangerous, the role of
technology becomes increasingly important to our efforts. We are using technology to improve
the way we collect, analyze, and share information. We have seen significant improvement in
capabilities and capacities over the past decade; but keeping pace with technology remains a
key concern for the future.
The FBI Laboratory is one of the largest and most comprehensive forensic laboratories
in the world. Operating out of a state-of-the-art facility in Quantico, Virginia, laboratory
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personnel travel the world on assignment, using science and technology to protect our Nation and
support law enforcement, intelligence, military, and forensic science partners. The Lab’s many
services include providing expert testimony, mapping crime scenes, and conducting forensic
exams of physical and hazardous evidence. Lab personnel possess expertise in many areas of
forensics supporting law enforcement and intelligence purposes, including explosives, trace
evidence, documents, chemistry, cryptography, DNA, facial reconstruction, fingerprints,
firearms, digital forensics, and WMDs.
One example of the Lab’s key services and programs is the Combined DNA Index
System (“CODIS”), which allows over 200 law enforcement laboratories throughout the United
States to compare DNA samples against over 24 million DNA profiles. Since its inception,
CODIS has aided over 680,000 investigations, while maintaining its sterling reputation and the
confidence of the American public.
Statutory requirements and recent regulatory changes have significantly expanded the
DNA processing requirements of the FBI. For instance, enacted in 2005, the DNA Fingerprint
Act (in 34 U.S.C. § 40702(a)(1)(A) and (B)) authorized the Attorney General to collect DNA
samples from individuals who are arrested, facing charges, or convicted, and from non-U.S.
persons detained under U.S. authority. The law mandates that Federal DNA collection agencies
submit their arrestee collections to the FBI Laboratory for analysis and entry into CODIS. In
April 2020, the Department of Justice amended the DNA Fingerprint Act’s implementing rule
that now precludes the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) from waiving DNA
collections. As a result, during the past twelve months, the FBI received an average of 146,000
DNA samples per month, which is more than quadruple the average monthly submission rate for
FY 2021 of 36,300 samples. This substantial increase has created massive budget and personnel
shortfalls for the FBI. While the FBI has worked with DHS components to automate and
streamline workflows, a backlog of over 1.7 million samples (as of July 2024) has developed,
increasing the likelihood of arrestees and non-U.S. detainees being released before identification
through investigative leads.
Investment in additional expanded DNA capabilities and technology is critical to
maintaining and enhancing the FBI’s ability to address emerging threats and help mission critical
information reach partners and investigators in an expeditious manner.
C onclusion
The strength of any organization is its people. The threats we face as a Nation have
never been greater or more diverse and the expectations placed on the FBI have never been
higher. Our fellow citizens look to the FBI to protect the United States from all of those
threats, and the men and women of the FBI continue to meet and exceed those expectations,
every day. I thank them for their dedicated service.
Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Nadler, and Members of the Committee, thank you
for the opportunity to testify today. I am happy to answer your questions.
