Who decides who gets on the FBIs Ten Most Wanted list?
The FBI field offices send names of candidates to the Bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division (CID). Special Agents of the CID and the Office of Public Affairs then review the list and send their suggestion to the CID’s Assistant Director and then to the FBI’s Deputy Director, who has final approval. The FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list appeared for the first time sixty years ago today. It grew out of a newspaper article that had been written for the International News Service, about the “toughest guys” the FBI was trying to apprehend. Positive feedback from the article prompted then Director J. Edgar Hoover to establish the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The goal was to get the names and faces of particularly dangerous fugitives before the public, which was then asked to provide any information that would lead to the arrest of these felons. Over the years, some 150 of the over 490 fugitives listed have been captured thanks to public assistance.
