America


FBI’s Most Wanted List Celebrates 75th Year


It has become one of the crime fighting agency’s most well-known and successful programs.


W BY VAN CHARLES


hen the fbi launched its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list 75 years ago, it wasn’t the result


of lengthy meetings in smoke-filled rooms as agents devised ways to find the baddest of bad guys. Not even close. Instead, it came about almost by


accident when in 1949 a reporter with the International News Service asked the FBI for the names and descriptions of the “toughest guys” it was after. The FBI provided 10 names, and


the resulting story generated by the reporter drew national attention. It didn’t take long for that atten-


tion to reach the desk of then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who real- ized immediately that publicizing the names and images of fugitives would almost certainly lead to tips on their whereabouts, and the top 10 list, as it’s often called, was born. Fast-forward 75 years and the list


has become one of the crime fighting agency’s most well-known and suc- cessful programs. How successful? FBI data show


that as of August, the names of 537 fugitives have found their way onto that list and 497 — an astonishing 93% — have been tracked down and taken into custody. While celebrating the list’s 75th anniversary, FBI Director Kash Patel called it an “invaluable tool” when it comes to tracking down fugitives. “The capture rate of the subjects on the list demonstrates the enormous


20 NEWSMAX | OCTOBER 2025


assistance the public provides, as well as the FBI’s unwaver- ing commitment to apprehending these criminals,” Patel said. The first person


to appear on the list was Thomas James Holden, the murder- ous leader of the infa- mous bank robbing team of the Holden- Keating Gang. Described by the


FBI as “a menace to every man, woman, and child in Ameri- ca,” Holden robbed trains and banks but made his big- gest score in 1926, when he hijacked a U.S. mail truck and absconded with the princely sum — at that time — of $135,000. The law finally


caught up to Holden, and in 1928 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He spent only two years behind bars before escaping and going back to his felonious ways, but he was caught, returned to prison, and even- tually paroled in 1947. What landed him the inaugural


spot on the list happened in 1949, when he murdered his wife, her broth- er, and her stepbrother while in a drunken stupor. Making it onto the list requires


more than simply being a bad guy — or girl, since 12 women also achieved infamy. One of the first requirements is that the person have a lengthy record


INCEPTION The front page cover of The Washington Daily News, published Feb. 7, 1949, with the story “FBI’s ‘Most-Wanted Fugitives’ Named,” was the very first instance of the FBI releasing a top 10 list of wanted offenders. The FBI launched the oficial Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on March 14, 1950.


of committing serious crimes. They should also be considered a “particu- larly dangerous menace to society” due to their current criminal charges, according to the FBI. The second requirement is the


belief that the massive publicity gen- erated by the program would help capture the fugitive who isn’t already notorious from other publicity. To make those determinations,


FBI headquarters asks its 55 field offices to submit candidates for the list, and those submissions are then reviewed by special agents who pro- pose names to FBI executive manage-


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