FBI Officials Accuse Kash Patel of 'Gaming the System' With Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List
Key Takeaways
- •Kash Patel has publicly claimed Ten Most Wanted captures as the defining statistic of his FBI tenure, making the timing of those captures central to accusations he is manipulating the program.
- •The FBI has captured eight Top Ten fugitives since Patel became director in February 2025, compared with four during the Biden presidency.
- •In two cases, fugitives were added to the list only 73 minutes before being captured in Mexico, a timeline a 26-year FBI veteran said was implausible and likely reflected arrests already in motion.
- •Fugitives captured under Patel spent a median of 37.5 days on the list, while those captured under Biden averaged 482 days, with the average span from listing to capture previously around 105 days.
- •Individual cases, such as three-year fugitive Gregory Henderson Jr. being arrested one day after being listed, illustrate the pattern that former officials describe as a strategy for producing quick statistics.
When Donald Trump picked Kash Patel to lead the FBI, the president called him "brilliant" and predicted Patel would "go down as the best ever at that position. ... agents love this guy." Inside the bureau, however, some officials tell a very different story.
The Daily Beast's "Punch Up" Substack reported Thursday that Patel stands accused of "gaming the system."
Patel has bragged on X that his tenure has been defined by capturing fugitives from the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. Created in 1950, the list is one of the FBI's longest-running public programs, built to publicize serious fugitive cases and generate tips from the public. Bureau officials, though, have dismissed the list as "bulls——," and MS NOW has reported that Patel adds names to the list right before agents make arrests.
The FBI says it has captured eight Top Ten fugitives since Patel took charge in February 2025, compared with four during Biden's presidency. Those eight spent a median of 37.5 days on the list before capture. Seven of the fugitives added and captured since Patel became director averaged just 24 days on the list. Those captures are the statistic Patel has most publicly claimed as his own — which is why the timing behind them sits at the heart of the accusations.
In two cases, fugitives were placed on the list just 73 minutes before they were captured in Mexico.
Robert D'Amico, a 26-year FBI veteran who investigated violent and organized crime, questioned the compressed timeline. "I have never seen a sequence of events like that happen in 73 minutes," D'Amico said. "Too many things have to happen in between. It could be 73 hours, not 73 minutes, and it still stinks."
"That arrest was almost certainly already in motion. The listing didn't produce it, and counting it as a Top Ten success inflates the numbers," he added.
The contrast with the previous administration is stark. Under President Joe Biden, captured Most Wanted fugitives had spent an average of 482 days on the list, and the average span from listing to capture during those years was roughly 105 days.
Individual cases illustrate the pattern. Gregory Henderson Jr. had been on the run for three years, yet was placed on the Top Ten list on Aug. 11 at 1:55 p.m. and arrested the following day. KaShawn Nicola Roper was added to the list on April 14 and arrested the next morning, with the FBI saying tips led to her arrest. People who provide tips that "lead to the arrest and conviction" can receive cash rewards, and the FBI's website lists a baseline amount of $250,000 for Top Ten cases.
Former Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi said the data "speaks for itself."
"The compressed time between placement on the list and capture smells like a strategy to game the system in favor of quick stats," Figliuzzi said.
The competing accounts draw on the same public record — the date each fugitive was listed and the date each was captured — so every additional Top Ten during Patel's tenure will add a new data point to the debate.
