Report: FBI to Spend Less Time on White Collar Crime, More Time on Immigration Enforcement

A report from Reuters says the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has given agents guidance that white collar crime investigations will be de-emphasized in favor of immigration enforcement actions.

Reuters cites four anonymous sources who say that “agents were told by their field offices they would need to start devoting about one third of their time to helping the Trump administration crack down on illegal immigration. Pursuing white collar cases, they were told, will be deprioritized for at least the remainder of 2025.”

The number of field offices or agents involved in the guidance is unknown.

The FBI’s website on white collar crime says the program “focuses on analyzing intelligence and solving complex investigations—often with a connection to organized crime activities.” It specifically lists the following as areas of interest:

• Healthcare fraud: Investigating providers that intentionally deceive public and private insurance programs.
  
  
• Corporate fraud: Investigating financial and accounting malfeasance as well as areas such as insider trading and kickbacks.
  
  
• Money laundering: Targeting professional money launderers, facilitators, and gatekeepers as well as complicit financial institutions.
  
  
• Securities and commodities fraud: Working closely with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other agencies to uncover fraudulent investment schemes.
  
  
• Mortgage and financial institution fraud: Investigating organized criminal activity targeting banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions; embezzlement, misapplication of funds, and other insider fraud; and fraud related to real estate assets.
  
  
• Intellectual property theft: Investigating corporate espionage, counterfeit parts, and other aspects of intellectual property crime.
  
  

The Reuters investigation comes on the heels of remarks made on 12 May by the head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, Matthew R. Galeotti, at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crimes Conference. Galeotti seemed to signal a shift in DOJ policy on the Criminal Division’s approach to white collar crime in the speech:

“Those efforts come at too high a cost for businesses and American enterprise. Companies need clear guidance and certainty on the concrete benefits that each company, their shareholders, boards, and customers can earn through self-reporting, owning up to criminal conduct, remediating, and cooperating with the department. Too often, businesses have been subject to unchecked and long-running investigations that can be costly—both to the department and to the subjects and targets of its investigations—and can unduly interfere with day-to-day business operations. These costs and uncertainty have deterred companies from working with the department and diverted the department’s resources from tackling the most significant threats facing our country….

“…Excessive enforcement and unfocused corporate investigations stymie innovation, limits prosperity, and reduces efficiency. So that ends today.”

He said the criminal division would refocus on three core areas:

• Fraud perpetrated against Americans as individuals, as taxpayers, and as recipients of government services.
  
  
• Waste, fraud, and abuse directed at the U.S. government, including those that would defraud Medicare, defense infrastructure, and public benefit programs.
  
  
• Criminals seeking to exploit the U.S. financial system to assist them in their criminal activity or to threaten the nation’s economy or security.
  
  

Galeotti did not mention anything about immigration in his speech, and the Reuters article noted that “immigration enforcement has largely not been the purview of the Justice Department’s law enforcement agencies in the past.”