Oregon — The Justice Department on Monday released results from a six-month national operation that deployed FBI personnel to assist investigations of violent crime and cases involving missing or murdered Indigenous people in Indian Country. Officials said the surge, described as the largest and most sustained deployment of its kind, strengthened public safety efforts across tribal communities.
The operation, conducted from late 2024 into 2025, assigned 64 FBI employees on temporary rotations to field offices in ten regions, including Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, and Albuquerque. The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Missing and Murdered Unit (BIA MMU) provided an additional 36 specialists, contributing forensic and technical support such as ground-penetrating radar, underwater cameras, and sonar searches.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi said the combined efforts “solved crimes, protected victims of violence, and brought much needed safety and security to communities in Indian country,” adding that federal and tribal agencies would continue pursuing unsolved cases.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the scale of many tribal jurisdictions requires significant resources to reduce violent crime. Patel called the initiative, known as Operation Not Forgotten, “a major step forward in giving these communities the justice that they deserve.”
According to the Justice Department, the surge supported more than 330 investigations and contributed to broader Indian Country programs in fiscal year 2025, including 1,260 individuals charged, 1,123 arrests, 304 weapons recovered, and 458 child victims identified or located.
Federal prosecutors highlighted several recent cases linked to the expanded investigative support. Charges filed in New Mexico include an indictment in the 2020 killing of Zachariah Shorty, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, and separate federal charges for assault, second-degree murder, and aggravated sexual abuse in unrelated incidents. Antoine Scott, 28, was sentenced to 28 months in federal prison and 3 years of supervised release. In June 2023, Scott approached a truck on the Warm Springs reservation and began punching the passenger through the window. The passenger suffered a head injury as well as a hand injury requiring stitches. Scott pleaded guilty to assault resulting in serious bodily injury and prohibited possession of a firearm.
Justice Department officials noted that violent crime remains a persistent challenge in Indian Country. At the start of fiscal year 2025, the FBI had approximately 4,300 open cases, including more than 900 death investigations and 1,000 child abuse cases.
Operation Not Forgotten builds on earlier federal initiatives dating back to Executive Order 13898, signed in 2019, which created a national task force on missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives. This was the third deployment under the program, which has supported more than 760 cases over three years.
The Department said the effort will continue through its Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Regional Outreach Program, which places attorneys and coordinators in U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to help prevent and respond to MMIP cases.
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