A fugitive is a person who is fleeing from custody, or who is accused/convicted of a crime and hiding from law enforcement. The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives is a most wanted list maintained by the United States’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Individuals are generally only removed from the list if the fugitive is captured, dies, or if the charges against them are dropped; they are then replaced by a new entry selected by the FBI.
In the ten cases, the FBI removes individuals from the list after deciding that they were no longer a “particularly dangerous menace to society”. On rare occasions, the FBI will add a “Number Eleven” if that individual is extremely dangerous but the Bureau does not feel any of the current ten should be removed. Despite occasional references in the media, the FBI does not rank their list; no suspect is considered “1 on the FBI’s Most Wanted List” or “The Most Wanted”.
The Criminal Investigative Division (CID) at FBI Headquarters calls upon all 56 Field Offices to submit candidates for the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list. The nominees received are reviewed by special agents in the CID and the Office of Public Affairs. The selection of the “proposed” candidate(s) is forwarded to the Assistant Director of the CID for his/her approval and then to the FBI’s Director for final approval.
The list is commonly posted in public places such as post offices to notify the public and get assistance from the public in arresting the listed individuals. In many cases, fugitives on the list have turned themselves in on becoming aware of their listing. Rewards are offered for information leading to capture of fugitives on the list ranging in thousands and even millions of dollars.
Here are the FBI ten most wanted fugitives.
Robert William Fisher is an American fugitive wanted for allegedly killing his wife and two children, Robert Jr. and Brittney, and then blowing up the house in which they lived in Scottsdale, Arizona on April 10, 2001. He was named by the FBI as the 475th fugitive to be placed on the list of FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives on June 29, 2002. Investigators believe he murdered his family because he felt threatened by his wife’s intent to divorce. He is believed to be the one who rigged the natural gas explosion.
2. Alexis Flores
Alexis Flores is a Honduran fugitive wanted for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of five-year-old Iriana DeJesus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in July 2000. Flores is the 487th fugitive to be placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. He was deported to his native Honduras in 2005 after serving a prison term for forgery in Arizona. He was added to the list after deportation when his DNA was matched to the DeJesus crime.
3. Jason Derek Brown
Jason Derek Brown is an American fugitive wanted for first degree murder and armed robbery in Phoenix, Arizona. On November 29, 2004, Brown allegedly shot and killed an armored car guard outside a movie theater and fled on a bicycle with $56,000 in a duffel bag. On December 8, 2007, he was named by the FBI as the 489th fugitive to be placed on its Ten Most Wanted list. He is considered armed and extremely dangerous. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $200,000 for information leading to his capture. Authorities believe he may have fled the country and could be living in France or Thailand.
4. Yaser Abdel Said
Yaser Abdel Said is a fugitive on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. An Egyptian resident of the United States, he is wanted for the murder of his two teenage daughters in Irving, Texas. Said, who was very controlling over his family, was believed to have felt that his daughters Amina and Sarah dishonored the family by refusing to adhere to the standards of traditional Egyptian cultural behavior. On January 1, 2008, he lured them into his taxi cab on the pretense of taking them out to eat, and fatally shot them in the cab. Said has escaped police capture, and remains at large.
5. Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel
Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel is an Indian fugitive wanted for killing his wife at a Dunkin’ Donuts store in Hanover, Maryland, in the United States on April 12, 2015. He was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on April 18, 2017. Patel was the 514th fugitive to be placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. He was last seen at Pennsylvania Station near his hotel in Newark, New Jersey.
6. Santiago Villalba Mederos
Santiago “Pucho” Villalba Mederos is a former American fugitive who was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on September 25, 2017. Mederos, a member of the violent Eastside Lokotes Sureños gang, was wanted in connection with two separate shootings in Tacoma, Washington, that resulted in the death of a young woman and the serious wounding of her brother, and a month later, the murder of a young man. Mederos was a teenager at the time of the killings. Mederos was the 515th fugitive to be placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The FBI offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his capture. He was captured in Tenancingo, Mexico on June 5, 2020.
7. Alejandro Castillo
Alejandro Rosales Castillo is an American fugitive who was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on October 24, 2017. He is wanted for the August 2016 murder of Truc Quan “Sandy” Ly Le in Charlotte, North Carolina. He had previously dated Truc. The two became acquainted while working together in a Charlotte restaurant. Castillo was the 516th fugitive to be placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The FBI offers a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his capture.
8. Rafael Caro Quintero
Rafael Caro Quintero is a former Mexican drug trafficker who co-founded the now-disintegrated Guadalajara Cartel with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and other drug traffickers in the 1970s. He was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, Camarena’s pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar, American writer John Clay Walker, and dentistry student Alberto Radelat in 1985.
He was arrested, judged and jailed for 28 years in Mexico before being released in 2013; a new arrest warrant was issued shortly after his release. Caro Quintero is still wanted for his previous affiliation with drug trafficking and involvement in the 1985 murders. He remains at large, as a wanted fugitive in Mexico, the United States, and several other countries. The United States is offering a $20 million bounty for his arrest.
9. Arnoldo Jimenez
Arnoldo Jimenez is an American fugitive who was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on May 8, 2019. He is wanted for the May 2012 murder of his wife, Estrella Carrera, who was found dead in a bathtub at her apartment in Burbank, Illinois. He allegedly stabbed his wife to death just hours after their wedding. Jimenez was the 522nd fugitive to be placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The FBI offers a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his capture.
10. Eugene Palmer
Eugene K. Palmer is an American fugitive who was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on May 29, 2019. He is wanted for allegedly shooting and killing his daughter-in-law, Tammy Palmer, on September 24, 2012, in Stony Point, New York. Palmer is the 523rd and most recent fugitive to be placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his capture.
