The FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives during the 2000s is a list, maintained for a sixth decade, of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. At any given time, the FBI is actively searching for 12,000 fugitives. During the 2000s, 36 new fugitives were added to the list. By the close of the decade a total of 494 fugitives had been listed on the Top Ten list, of whom 463 have been captured or located. [1]
The 2000s (decade) started out badly for the FBI's much needed attempts to upgrade technology. First, the "Trilogy" project went far over the $380 million budget, and behind its three-year schedule. Then, Virtual Case File (VCF) planned for completion in 2003, was officially abandoned in 2005, after more than $100 million spent. [2] A new, more ambitious investigation software project, Sentinel, was introduced in 2005 as a replacement for the failed VCF system. [3]
In 2001, Robert Hanssen, high within the Bureau, was caught selling information to the Russians, and Bureau security practices came into question. [4]
In 2002 the FBI's official top priority became counter-terrorism, followed second by counterintelligence. The USA PATRIOT Act granted the FBI increased monitoring powers.
The 9/11 Commission in 2004 blamed the FBI in part for not pursuing intelligence reports which could have prevented the September 11, 2001 attacks. [5] In consequence, the Bureau came under oversight by the new Director of National Intelligence.
The FBI in the past has identified individuals by the sequence number in which each individual has appeared on the list. Some individuals have even appeared twice, and often a sequence number was permanently assigned to an individual suspect who was soon caught, captured, or simply removed, before his or her appearance could be published on the publicly released list. In those cases, the public would see only gaps in the number sequence reported by the FBI. For convenient reference, the wanted suspect's sequence number and date of entry on the FBI list appear below, whenever possible.
The following fugitives made up the top Ten list to begin the 2000s:
Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Donald Eugene Webb | #375 | 1981 | •Removed from the list on March 31, 2007. [6] On July 14, 2017, remains found at the Dartmouth home of Webb's wife were identified as belonging to Webb. Investigators stated that Webb had died in 1999. [7] |
Victor Manuel Gerena | #386 | 1984 | •Still at large. •Is wanted in connection with the 1983 armed robbery of approximately $7 million from a security company in Connecticut. [8] He was removed from the list on December 15, 2016. |
Arthur Lee Washington Jr. | #427 | 1989 | •Removed from the list in December 2000 for no longer meeting the list criteria. [9] |
Agustín Vásquez Mendoza | #445 | 1996 | •Captured •Vásquez was wanted in the murder of an undercover DEA special agent in Glendale, Arizona on June 30, 1994, during an undercover drug transaction, kidnapping, attempted armed robbery and assault in a drug conspiracy. •He was arrested in Mexico July 9, 2000. |
Glen Stewart Godwin | #447 | 1996 | •Still at large. •Godwin is being sought for his 1987 escape from Folsom State Prison in California, where he was serving a lengthy sentence for murder. Later he escaped from Mexican prison September 1991 after murdering a prison inmate in April 1991. [10] As of May 19, 2016, he was no longer on the list. |
Ramon Eduardo Arellano-Felix | #451 | 1997 | •Killed •He was wanted in ordering a hit which resulted in the mass murder of 19 people in Ensenada September 17, 1998; charged in a sealed indictment in United States District Court for the Southern District of California, with Conspiracy to Import Cocaine and Marijuana in drug trafficking; one of the leaders of the Arellano-Felix Organization (AFO), which is also known as the Tijuana Cartel. •He was killed in a gun battle with police at Mazatlán February 10, 2002. |
Eric Robert Rudolph | #454 | 1998 | •Captured •Rudolph was wanted in a series of southeastern U.S. bombings, including a bombing murder at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta on July 27, 1996. •Rudolph was arrested in Murphy, North Carolina on May 31, 2003. [11] |
James Charles Kopp | #455 | 1999 | •Captured •He was wanted for the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian at his home in Amherst, New York, October 23, 1998 and for non-fatal shootings of three doctors in Canada in 1994, 1995 and 1997. [12] •Kopp was arrested in Dinan, Brittany, France, March 30, 2001 and is in U.S custody. |
Osama bin Laden [13] | #456 | 1999 | •Killed •Osama bin Laden was the leader of al-Qaeda and was wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States embassies, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda is alleged to be responsible for the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. [14] [15] •Osama bin Laden was killed during Operation Neptune Spear [16] in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011. [17] |
James J. Bulger | #458 | 1999 | •Captured •Bulger was wanted for his role in 18 murders committed from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s in connection with his leadership of an organized crime group that allegedly controlled extortion, drug deals, and other illegal activities in the Boston, Massachusetts area. •He was arrested June 22, 2011, in Santa Monica, California. [18] [19] |
The list of the most wanted fugitives listed during the 2000s fluctuated throughout the decade. As before, spots on the list were occupied by fugitives who had been listed in prior years, and still remained at large. The list includes (in FBI list appearance sequence order): [21]
Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Jesse James Caston | #459 | August 19, 2000 | Four months |
![]() Caston was featured on the America's Most Wanted television program on August 19, 2000. He was spotted at a gas station at the corner of Brookhurst and Hazard in Westminster, California driving a 1980s model pickup truck that was pulling a cement pumper in July, 2000. He surrendered to authorities after a standoff at Lake Providence, Louisiana December 20, 2000. [23] | |||
Eric Franklin Rosser | #460 | December 27, 2000 | Eight months |
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Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Aurlieas Dame McClarty | #461 | February 5, 2001 | Nine days |
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Hopeton Eric Brown | #462 | March 17, 2001 | Three years |
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Maghfoor Mansoor | #463 | May 25, 2001 | Captured 12 days before official list publication |
![]() Mansoor headed east from Las Vegas and while a fugitive he assaulted a law enforcement officer and committed an armed carjacking in New Orleans, Louisiana which led to the death of a state highway worker whom he struck with the vehicle while fleeing. He then headed northeast from New Orleans and committed an armed carjacking, and numerous armed robberies/burglaries inside several casino/hotel rooms while in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to include holding a retired New Jersey State Trooper and his wife at gunpoint during a foiled room robbery attempt. Additionally he committed an armed robbery of a jewelry store located inside the Trump Taj Mahal. He fled Atlantic City by carjacking a cab at gunpoint, forced the cab driver to take him to New York City and then robbed him before exiting the cab. On May 11, 2001 he was located in New York City and was fatally shot by a New York City Division HIDTA Fugitive Task Force member that same day in a gunfight inside the hotel lobby of the Hampshire Hotel on 4th Street in New York City. [29] [30] | |||
Francis William Murphy | #464 | June 6, 2001 | Captured 17 days before official list publication |
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Dwight Bowen | #465 | August 30, 2001 | Captured 8 days before official list publication |
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Nikolay Soltys | #466 | August 23, 2001 | One week |
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Clayton Waagner | #467 | September 21, 2001 | Three months |
![]() Waagner became a U.S. Marshals Service Top 15 Fugitive on November 29, 2001 because of more than 280 letters that threatened to contain anthrax, which he mailed with return addresses of the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Secret Service in October 2001. He then mailed anthrax letters to Planned Parenthood [34] November 2001 and issued threats to kill 42 low-level abortion clinic employees up to November 23, 2001. Waagner was arrested at a Kinko's in Springdale, Ohio December 5, 2001. | |||
Felix Summers | #468 | October 30, 2001 | 45 days |
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Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Christian Longo | #469 | January 11, 2002 | Two days |
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Michael Scott Bliss | #470 | January 31, 2002 | Three months |
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James Spencer Springette | #471 | April 25, 2002 | Seven months |
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Rubén Hernández Martínez | #472 | May 1, 2002 | Two days |
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Timmy John Weber | #473 | May 7, 2002 | Captured 9 days before official list publication |
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Richard Goldberg | #474 | June 14, 2002 | Five years |
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Robert William Fisher | #475 | June 29, 2002 | Still at large but removed from the list |
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Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Michael Alfonso | #476 | January 23, 2003 | One year |
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Genero Espinosa Dorantes | #477 | August 14, 2003 | Three years |
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Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Diego León Montoya Sánchez | #478 | May 6, 2004 | Three years |
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Chaunson Lavel McKibbins | #479 | November 9, 2004 | Captured 11 days before official list publication |
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Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Jorge Alberto López Orozco | #480 | March 17, 2005 | Four years |
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Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Michael Paul Astorga | #481 | April 1, 2006 | Two days |
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Warren Steed Jeffs | #482 | May 6, 2006 | Four months |
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Ralph "Bucky" Phillips | #483 | September 7, 2006 | One day |
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John W. Parsons | #484 | September 30, 2006 | Twenty days |
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Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Emigdio Preciado Jr. | #485 | March 14, 2007 | Two years |
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Shauntay Henderson | #486 | March 31, 2007 | One day |
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Alexis Flores | #487 | June 2, 2007 | Still at large |
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Jon Savarino Schillaci | #488 | September 7, 2007 | Nine months |
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Jason Derek Brown | #489 | December 8, 2007 | Still at large but removed from the list |
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Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Michael Jason Registe | #490 | July 26, 2008 | One month |
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Edward Eugene Harper | #491 | November 29, 2008 | Eight months |
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Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed |
---|---|---|---|
Joe Luis Saenz | #492 | October 19, 2009 | Three years |
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Eduardo Ravelo | #493 | October 21, 2009 | Nine years |
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Semion Mogilevich | #494 | October 22, 2009 | Still at large but removed from the list |
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As the decade closed, the following were still at large as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives:
Name | Sequence number | Date of entry |
---|---|---|
Victor Manuel Gerena | #386 | May 14, 1984 |
Glen Stewart Godwin | #447 | Dec 7, 1996 |
Osama bin Laden [13] | #456 | Jun 7, 1999 |
James J. Bulger | #458 | Aug 19, 1999 |
Robert William Fisher | #475 | Jun 29, 2002 |
Alexis Flores | #487 | Jun 2, 2007 |
Jason Derek Brown | #489 | Dec 8, 2007 |
Joe Luis Saenz | #492 | Oct 19, 2009 |
Eduardo Ravelo | #493 | Oct 20, 2009 |
Semion Mogilevich | #494 | Oct 22, 2009 |