Kash Patel has spent his first month as FBI director cracking down on some of the Trump administration’s top law enforcement priorities, including violent crime, gang activity and drug trafficking – all while managing to avoid much of the high-profile controversy that has embroiled some other senior national security officials.
His early moves have earned him accolades from Republicans in Congress, who have been quick to praise Patel’s first weeks in office, including his effort to move quickly and share certain documents long requested by majorities on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
“Under the leadership of Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Bureau is working aggressively each and every day to find violent criminals, no matter where they are, and bring them to justice,” Patel told Fox News Digital in reflection on his first few weeks heading up the bureau.
“Any success thus far is a credit to the brave men and women of the FBI and our state and local law enforcement partners who do amazing work to execute the mission,” he added.
Just five weeks after his confirmation as FBI director, here are some of Patel’s earliest – and most significant – wins.
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Arrest of top MS-13 member
The FBI this week announced the arrest of the top U.S. MS-13 leader, 24-year-old Salvadoran national Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos.
Santos was captured in Woodbridge, Virginia, and was charged with being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm.
Officials told Fox News this week that Santos is one of the top three leaders of the MS-13 gangs in the U.S.
Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, and Patel both watched the arrest take place from a nearby tactical operation center.
In an interview with Fox News, Bondi praised the team for executing a “clean, safe operation” and credited FBI personnel for getting “one of the worst of the worst of the MS-13 off the streets this morning.”
‘Most wanted’ fugitive arrests
Patel announced last week that since Jan. 20, the FBI has apprehended three fugitives from the FBI’s top 10 Most Wanted list – an achievement that he said on social media is the result of good leadership and hard work from bureau personnel.
The individuals captured include Arnoldo Jimenez, accused of murdering his wife in Burbank, Illinois, in 2012; Donald Eugene Fields II, charged with child sex trafficking and child rape charges in federal and state court, respectively; and Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales, another MS-13 leader arrested in Mexico last week and extradited to the U.S., where he was charged with racketeering, conspiracy, conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists, narco-terrorism conspiracy and alien smuggling conspiracy.
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Roman-Bardales had been a fugitive for nearly three years prior to his arrest and is believed to be a founding member of the MS-13 leadership structure in the U.S., where he helped direct the group’s unlawful activities in the U.S., El Salvador, and elsewhere for roughly 20 years.
Patel praised the arrests in a post on X, noting that the successes of the FBI are “not an accident.”
“When you let good cops be good cops, this is what happens,” he said. “This administration is giving the new FBI and AG Bondi the resources to get the job done — and we won’t stop.”
Narcotics crackdown
The FBI under Patel successfully raided and arrested 22 members of a narcotics trafficking ring in Lubbock, Texas, believed to be tied to violent drug cartels based in Mexico.
The operation comes as Patel and Bondi have moved to crack down on narcotics and drug trafficking as part of Trump’s agenda for his second White House term.
In a post on X, Patel praised the work of the FBI’s Dallas Field Office, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“These are the operations that mean safer streets for American families,” Patel said. “And we are just getting started.”
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Tesla arrests
The FBI and U.S. Department of Justice have worked in tandem to crack down on a wave of vandalism targeting Tesla dealerships, charging stations, and individual Tesla cars in the U.S. – actions that Bondi described in a press conference earlier this month as acts of “domestic terrorism” punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Individuals have been arrested in recent weeks for setting fire to, and shooting at, Tesla cars and dealerships across the country, vandalizing charging stations and carving graffiti, including anti-Trump messages, into personal vehicles.
The crimes have prompted a federal crackdown pursued by FBI and DOJ leadership.
Most recently, authorities on Thursday announced federal charges against a 36-year-old Las Vegas resident accused of setting fire to vehicles at a Tesla collision business in Nevada earlier this month. Video footage obtained by authorities shows an individual using Molotov cocktails to set the Teslas on fire, using an AR-30 rifle to shoot bullets into the vehicles, and spray-painting the word “resist” onto the individual cars.
Las Vegas authorities described the crime as a “targeted” attack on the Tesla facility.
“As promised, acts of violence and vandalism will not be tolerated, and today law enforcement personnel acted quickly to arrest an individual on charges including arson,” Patel said Thursday in a press release announcing the federal charges. “Under Attorney General Bondi’s leadership, we will continue to pursue these investigations with the full force of law and will bring to justice anyone responsible for these attacks.”
Terrorist money laundering stopped
This week, the Department of Justice announced the successful disruption of a major cryptocurrency financing scheme believed to be used to launder money to Hamas – a significant victory for the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division and Cyber Division and the FBI’s Albuquerque Field Office, which ran point on the investigation.
The financing ring purportedly controlled by Hamas was used by the terrorist group to launder more than $1.5 million in virtual cryptocurrency from donors since October 2024, according to FBI and Department of Justice personnel.
Supporters were encouraged to make donations to Hamas via an encrypted group chat and complex money laundering system, authorities said.
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In total, the FBI seized $201,000 in cryptocurrency assets from the group, including another $112,000 from three exchange accounts registered in the names of Palestinian individuals living in Turkey and elsewhere. The important success comes as Hamas has increasingly embraced cryptocurrency and encrypted communications to better evade detection.
The U.S. Treasury Department believes that Hamas has been using crypto to launder its money since at least 2020, taking advantage of the decentralized and unregulated nature of the digital currency.
These early victories are a signal of strength for the bureau as it seeks to shed what it sees as unfair perceptions of weaponization or politicization, and pursue key priorities under the Trump administration.
FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson praised Patel’s job performance, telling Fox News Digital, “The FBI and our law enforcement partners have delivered on multiple key initiatives just within the first month, but the work is only beginning.”
“Director Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino have built an extremely formidable FBI team committed to delivering on the promises of building public trust, engaging with congressional partners to increase transparency, and pursuing violent criminals in every corner of the earth,” Williamson said.
“We’re just getting started.”
Fox News’s Anders Hagstrom, David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
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