50 Fun Facts About FBI

In what year was the Bureau of Investigation, forerunner of the FBI, created?

The Bureau of Investigation was formed in July 1908, when the attorney general hired 34 agents with Justice Department expense funds after Congress barred him from borrowing Secret Service men.

Which attorney general organized the Bureau of Investigation in 1908?

Charles Joseph Bonaparte, attorney general from 1906 to 1909, organized the Bureau in 1908; he was a grandson of Napoleon's brother Jérôme and Jérôme's American wife Elizabeth Patterson.

Which president pushed to create an investigative service answering only to the attorney general?

Theodore Roosevelt, a champion of vigorous federal enforcement, backed the plan; McKinley's 1901 assassination had stoked fears of anarchists and the Oregon land fraud scandal showed how short-staffed Justice was.

Who was the Bureau's first 'chief', the title now called director?

Bonaparte only notified Congress of the new agency in December 1908, months after it began work.

The Bureau's first official task was surveying brothels to prepare to enforce which 1910 law?

The Mann Act of 1910, better known as the White Slave Traffic Act, banned transporting women across state lines for 'immoral purposes' and handed the young Bureau its first big enforcement job.

In what year did the agency officially take the name Federal Bureau of Investigation?

It became the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935, after a spell as the United States Bureau of Investigation and then, from 1933, the Division of Investigation alongside the Bureau of Prohibition.

For how many years did J. Edgar Hoover run the Bureau?

Hoover led the Bureau for 48 years, from 1924 until his death in May 1972, serving under eight presidents; Nixon was taped in 1971 explaining why he dared not fire him.

After Hoover's death, Congress limited future FBI directors to how long in office?

Since 1968 directors have also needed Senate confirmation, a rule that did not apply to Hoover as the incumbent.

Which president appointed J. Edgar Hoover to lead the Bureau in 1924?

Calvin Coolidge's attorney general Harlan Fiske Stone named the 29-year-old Hoover acting director in May 1924; Herbert Hoover was no relation.

What was J. Edgar Hoover's first job, taken at age 18?

Hoover took a job as a messenger at the Library of Congress in 1913 while studying law at night; biographers say its cataloguing culture shaped the FBI's obsession with files.

On what date in 1895 was J. Edgar Hoover born?

Hoover was born on New Year's Day, 1 January 1895, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., where a stained-glass window in Capitol Hill United Methodist Church was later dedicated to him.

In what year did the FBI's Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory officially open?

The FBI's crime laboratory opened on 24 November 1932 in a single room at Bureau headquarters; Hoover created it to professionalize investigations with forensic science.

Outside which Chicago movie house was John Dillinger shot dead by Bureau agents in July 1934?

Dillinger was shot leaving the Biograph Theater on Lincoln Avenue on 22 July 1934 after brothel keeper Ana Cumpănaș, later mythologized as the 'Woman in Red', tipped off agents.

Which FBI Chicago office chief won fame for the Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd cases?

Melvin Purvis ran the Chicago field office and was present at both the Dillinger and Floyd shootings in 1934; Ness worked for the Prohibition Bureau, not the FBI, and Hamer was the Texas Ranger who ambushed Bonnie and Clyde.

Which gangster was NOT among those the FBI lists as caught or killed in the 1930s 'War on Crime'?

Capone was brought down for tax evasion by Treasury agents; the Bureau's roll call also includes Alvin 'Creepy' Karpis.

Which 1928 Supreme Court case ruled wiretaps of a bootlegger did not breach the Fourth Amendment?

Olmstead v. United States (1928) held that tapping bootlegger Roy Olmstead's phone lines without entering his property was no search; Katz overturned it in 1967 and Congress required wiretap warrants in 1968.

Early Bureau homicide investigations included the murders of members of which Native American nation?

The Osage murders of the 1920s, in which Oklahoma tribe members were killed for their oil headrights, became one of the young Bureau's first big homicide cases, later dramatized in Killers of the Flower Moon.

Under which Supreme Court case were six of eight captured Nazi saboteurs executed during World War II?

In Ex parte Quirin (1942) the Court upheld trying the saboteurs before a military commission; the FBI had arrested all eight after George Dasch turned himself in, and six were electrocuted on 8 August 1942.

The joint US-UK Venona Project, in which the FBI was heavily involved, broke the codes of which country?

Hoover ran the FBI's side of it but did not tell the CIA about the project until 1952.

Which wartime policy did Hoover oppose that Roosevelt then enacted under Executive Order 9066?

Hoover argued the mass removal of Japanese Americans was unnecessary, since the FBI had already detained over 5,500 Issei men from its custodial list within weeks of Pearl Harbor; Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 anyway in February 1942.

What did the name COINTELPRO stand for?

COINTELPRO, the FBI's Counter-Intelligence Program, ran from 1956 to 1971 to disrupt domestic political groups; its targets included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King Jr.

COINTELPRO was exposed after activists burgled an FBI office in March 1971 in which Pennsylvania town?

The burglars hit the FBI's resident agency in Media, Pennsylvania, on 8 March 1971 and mailed the stolen files to newspapers; the Washington Post was the first to publish them.

Which FBI deputy director was Watergate's 'Deep Throat'?

Mark Felt, the Bureau's associate director, fed Bob Woodward of the Washington Post after being passed over for director in 1972; he retired in 1973 and only revealed himself as Deep Throat in 2005.

In what year did the FBI officially announce its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list?

The Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list debuted on 14 March 1950 after a chat between Hoover and an International News Service editor about publicizing the Bureau's 'toughest guys'; robber Thomas J. Holden was the first name.

Machetero member Víctor Manuel Gerena spent how long on the Ten Most Wanted list, longer than anyone else?

Gerena, wanted for a 1983 Wells Fargo depot robbery in Connecticut, was listed from May 1984 to December 2016, 32 years; the FBI insists the list is unranked and nobody is officially 'number one'.

Leslie Isben Rogge, who surrendered in 1996, was the first Most Wanted fugitive caught thanks to what?

Rogge, a bank robber, surrendered at the US embassy in Guatemala City in May 1996 after a viewer of the FBI's new website recognized his photo, the list's first internet-assisted capture.

The FBI Academy, where new agents train, is located in which Virginia town?

The FBI Academy opened at Quantico in 1972 on 385 acres of woodland inside the Marine Corps base; it lent its name to the 2015 TV series Quantico.

How many field offices does the FBI maintain in major US cities?

The FBI has 56 field offices in major US cities, each led by a special agent in charge (an assistant director in the largest), backed by hundreds of smaller resident agencies.

What are the FBI's overseas offices in US embassies and consulates called?

Legal Attachés, or 'legats', are FBI agents posted to US embassies and consulates, more than 60 offices worldwide, mainly to coordinate with foreign police and security services.

The elite Hostage Rescue Team was formed in 1982 ahead of which event?

HRT was created in 1982 to be ready for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with the 1972 Munich massacre as the lesson; unlike part-time field-office SWAT teams, HRT is a full-time tactical unit.

The FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, home to the fingerprint database, is where?

The Clarksburg, West Virginia, complex opened in 1995 and houses the Bureau's fingerprint and criminal-record databases; its main building is about the length of three football fields.

Which brand of pistol did the FBI adopt as standard issue in 1997?

The FBI adopted Glock pistols in 1997, issuing the full-size 22 and compact 23 in .40 S&W; it stayed with the brand when it switched to 9mm Glock 17M and 19M models in 2016.

FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested in 2001 after leaving classified material at a dead drop where in Virginia?

Hanssen was seized at Foxstone Park in Vienna, Virginia, on 18 February 2001 after taping a package under a footbridge; the DOJ called his treachery possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history.

Which agent, arrested in Los Angeles in 1984, was the first FBI agent convicted of espionage?

Richard Miller, a Los Angeles agent arrested in October 1984 for passing documents to Soviet émigré lover Svetlana Ogorodnikova, was the first FBI agent ever convicted of espionage; Ames was CIA.

Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger, an FBI informant since 1975, was finally captured in 2011 in which city?

He had been on the Ten Most Wanted list for sixteen years, second in notoriety only to Osama bin Laden.

Which Irish-American crime group did Whitey Bulger lead?

Bulger led the Winter Hill Gang, named for a Somerville neighbourhood; the FBI's Boston office was accused of turning a blind eye to his crimes in exchange for information on the Italian Mafia.

The Unabomber, arrested in 1996, had lived since 1971 in a remote cabin in which state?

Ted Kaczynski lived in a 10-by-12-foot cabin near Lincoln, Montana, from 1971; his brother David recognized his writing style after newspapers published the 35,000-word manifesto in 1995.

The 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff between the FBI and Randy Weaver took place in which state?

The August 1992 siege took place at Randy Weaver's cabin at Ruby Ridge in northern Idaho; an FBI official later pleaded guilty to obstruction for destroying an internal critique of the operation.

How long did the 1993 Waco siege last after the failed ATF raid?

The siege ran 51 days, from the failed ATF raid on 28 February 1993 to the fire of 19 April; four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians died in the initial raid before the FBI took over.

The FBI was criticized for its treatment of which guard after the 1996 Olympic Park bombing?

Security guard Richard Jewell spotted the bomb and helped clear the area, then spent 88 days as the FBI's prime suspect before being cleared; Eric Rudolph was the real bomber.

Which FBI director, appointed just before 9/11, served from 2001 to 2013?

Robert Mueller took office on 4 September 2001, a week before the attacks, and served to 2013; a decorated Marine officer in Vietnam, he later led the special counsel inquiry into Russian election interference.

Which FBI director was fired by the president in May 2017?

James Comey, the seventh director, had served since 2013 when President Trump dismissed him on 9 May 2017, only the second director ever fired, after William Sessions in 1993.

The 1997 film Donnie Brasco tells the true story of which undercover FBI agent infiltrating the Mafia?

Johnny Depp played him opposite Al Pacino; Pistone spent six years inside the Bonanno family.

The TV series Criminal Minds follows which part of the FBI?

Criminal Minds follows the Behavioral Analysis Unit, the profilers' unit that grew out of the 1970s Behavioral Science Unit and belongs to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.

The FBI's national security work is most often compared to which British agency?

MI5, Britain's domestic Security Service, is the usual comparison; like the FBI it works at home, whereas MI6 spies abroad and GCHQ handles signals intelligence.

Roughly what was the FBI's total budget in fiscal year 2019?

The FBI's budget was about $9.6 billion in fiscal 2019, almost all of it in the salaries-and-expenses account that pays its roughly 35,000 employees, including about 13,000 special agents.

In which year did the FBI swear in its first modern-era female special agents?

Joanne Pierce and Susan Roley Malone were sworn in as special agents in July 1972, two months after Hoover's death; the Bureau had employed a few women agents in the 1920s before he barred them.

Which president dedicated the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the FBI's headquarters, in 1975?

Gerald Ford dedicated the J. Edgar Hoover Building on 30 September 1975; personnel had begun moving in the previous October, and the building sits at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Which serving FBI agent died on 9/11 while helping evacuate the World Trade Center?

Leonard Hatton, a bomb-technician agent from the New York office, saw the attack on his way to work, joined firefighters inside and died when the South Tower fell; John O'Neill had left the Bureau weeks earlier.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports compile data from roughly how many law enforcement agencies?

They track arrests, clearances and officer information, focusing on the volume of serious crimes nationwide.