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.
1. Alexis Flores
Alexis Flores is a Honduran fugitive, murderer and child rapist wanted for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of five-year-old Iriana DeJesus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 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.
2. Yulan Adonay Archaga Carias
Yulan Adonay Archaga Carias is a Honduran fugitive and the suspected leader of the MS-13 gang in Honduras who was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on November 3, 2021. He is wanted for racketeering, narcotics trafficking, and firearms offenses. Archaga Carias is allegedly in charge of MS-13 for all of Honduras and is believed to be providing firearms, narcotics, and cash to gang members who are operating within the United States.
He is also believed to be responsible for ordering the murders of rival gang members. Authorities believe he is still in Honduras. Archaga Carias was the 526th 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.
3. Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel
Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel is an Indian fugitive wanted for allegedly killing his wife Palak 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 Newark Penn Station near his hotel in Newark, New Jersey.
4. 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. Castillo was the 516th 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.
5. Ruja Ignatova
Ruja Plamenova Ignatova is a Bulgarian-born German convicted fraudster. She is best known as the founder of a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme known as OneCoin. Since 2017, Ignatova has been on the run from various international law enforcement agencies. In early 2019, she was charged in absentia by U.S. authorities for wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. She was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted in June 2022.
6. 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 on the day after their wedding; she was found dead in a bathtub at her apartment in Burbank, Illinois. Jimenez was the 522nd 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.
7. Omar Alexander Cardenas
Omar Alexander Cardenas is an American fugitive and suspected member of the Pierce Street Gang in Los Angeles who was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on July 20, 2022. He is wanted for murder and for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, and is suspected by authorities to have fled to Mexico in order to avoid arrest. Cardenas was the 528th 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.
8. Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez
Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez is a Mexican drug cartel boss and former fugitive who was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on October 13, 2020. He was wanted for orchestrating the murder of Juan Jesús Guerrero Chapa, which was carried out on May 22, 2013, in Southlake, Texas. He is also believed to be responsible for numerous murders in Mexico.
Villarreal-Hernandez was the 524th fugitive to be placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The United States Department of State’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program offered a reward of up to $1 million for information leading directly to his arrest. He was captured on January 7, 2023.
9. Michael James Pratt
Michael James Pratt is a New Zealand native who was wanted on sex trafficking and child pornographic charges, in his involvement in GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys.com, a website that coerced hundreds of women into pornography videos. He fled San Diego while he was on trial. Pratt was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives in September 2022. On December 21, 2022, Pratt was captured in Madrid, Spain.
10. Rafael Caro Quintero
Rafael Caro Quintero is a Mexican drug lord who co-founded the now-disintegrated Guadalajara Cartel with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and other drug traffickers in the late 1970s. He is the brother of fellow drug trafficker Miguel Caro Quintero, founder and former leader of the defunct Sonora Cartel. Having formed the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1970s, Caro Quintero worked with Gallardo, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, and Pedro Avilés Pérez by shipping large quantities of marijuana to the United States from Mexico.
He was responsible for the kidnapping of United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, Camarena’s pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar, the American writer John Clay Walker, and dentistry student Alberto Radelat in 1985. After the murders, Caro Quintero fled to Costa Rica but later that year was arrested and extradited back to Mexico, where he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for murder.
Following his arrest, the Guadalajara Cartel disintegrated, and its leaders were incorporated into the Tijuana Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel, and Juárez Cartel. After serving 28 years in prison, Caro Quintero was freed from jail on in August 2013, after a state court concluded that he had been tried improperly. The day after his release, amid pressure from the United States government to re-arrest him, a Mexican federal court issued an arrest warrant against Caro Quintero.
Caro Quintero was wanted for his involvement in drug trafficking as well as the 1985 murders. He was at large as a wanted fugitive in Mexico, the United States, and several other countries. The United States offered a 20-million-dollar reward for information leading to his capture, the highest value among fugitives currently listed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Caro Quintero lost his final appeal to avoid extradition to the United States on March 27, 2021. Caro Quintero was arrested in Mexico on July 15, 2022.
I think that Bin Laden should be in this list