Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch
Distinguished Past, Dynamic Future The Criminal Investigative Division
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By J.R. Wilson
ost-September 11 reorganizations have created a new FBI dramatically different from what existed for most of the Bureau’s first century. But the Criminal Investigative Division (CID), direct descendant of one of the first components established under J. Edgar Hoover, in many ways represents the heart of the old FBI. Now part of the Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch (CCRSB), the CID continues to pursue the Bureau’s traditional targets – organized crime (from the old Mafia to new gangs coming out of Russia and Eurasia), public corruption, kidnapping, welfare fraud, crimes against children, white-collar crime, violent gangs, and criminal efforts to infiltrate professional and college sports. At the same time, the new structure has changed how the CID does its work, from the recruiting, training, and equipping of Agents to at what point a criminal activity now rises to the level of FBI involvement. More than half of the estimated 9,500 FBI Agents performing day-to-day investigations in the United States work for CID, although that is about 30 percent fewer than were assigned to those cases prior to September 11. “That does not include all cleared task force officers – local law enforcement officers cleared up to top secret with
said Ken Kaiser, FBI Assistant Director in Charge of CID. “That caused us to make up for that loss by using more sophisticated investigative techniques, increasing the task forces – which are a force multiplier – and prioritizing what we want to work – more into public corruption than before, more gang investigations using the criminal enterprise theory and a focus on corporate and health care fraud and gang and organized crime. We’ve also had an influx of intelligence analysts since 9/11, hiring more of those who can focus our investigations and lead us to the targets we should be working. “Pre-9/11, the CID had responsibility for 249 joint FBI/ state/local task forces. Today, we have expanded that to 441 task forces throughout the country. So in addition to 4,900 FBI Agents, we have more than 2,000 non-FBI officers devoted to violent crime, Indian reservation, gang, white-collar, and organized crime task forces. They have access to FBI databases and computer systems, are assigned cases just like FBI Agents, and are subject to the same rules as an FBI Agent. All 441 task forces have an FBI Supervisor and are attached to various FBI squads.” The diversity of the task forces and Agent assignments can be seen in CID’s violent crimes unit, which is responsible for kidnappings, bank robberies, interstate fugitives,
… the new structure has changed how CID does its work, from the recruiting, training, and equipping of Agents to at what point a criminal activity now rises to the level of FBI involvement. the FBI and permanently assigned to work with us on a daily basis on gang and organized crime task forces,” CID Deputy Assistant Director Daniel Roberts said. “We had to refocus about 1,800 agents from traditional criminal programs to the Global War on Terror [GWOT] since 9/11, including sending some to counterintelligence,”
forgery, piracy and counterfeiting, and theft of interstate shipments, among other crimes. “A stand-alone counterfeiting case would be a low priority because we don’t have the resources to work those we had prior to 9/11, but if it is related to a Russian or Asian organized crime group, that is when we would focus on
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