Director Testifies on FBI’s Evolution Over Past Decade

The Director described the continuing threats posed by al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations and the ongoing difficulty of detecting homegrown extremists. He specifically cited the example of the self-radicalized Rezwan Ferdaus, a Boston graduate student who allegedly planned to use unmanned, remote-controlled aircraft to attack the Capitol and other D.C. locations before his arrest in September.

On the cyber front, the Director indicated that the FBI last year “arrested a record 202 individuals for criminal intrusions, up from 159 in 2009,” including five of the world’s top cyber criminals. He also mentioned the FBI’s work to bring down the international Coreflood botnet in April and to help take down last month a cyber criminal network that had infected four million computers in more than 100 countries.

In the area of corporate and securities fraud, the Director said that the “FBI and its law enforcement partners continue to uncover major frauds, insider trading activity, and Ponzi schemes.” He said that at the end of fiscal year 2011 (September 30), the FBI “had more than 2,500 active corporate and securities fraud investigations,” a 47 percent increase since fiscal year 2008, and that during 2011 the FBI helped obtain an historic high of 611 convictions. The Director reaffirmed that the “FBI is pursuing those who commit fraud at every level and is working to ensure that those who played a role in the recent financial crisis are brought to justice.”