FBI Celebrates 60th Anniversary of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives Program

In 1949, a reporter for approached the FBI and asked about writing a story about the “toughest guys” being sought by the FBI at the time. We provided the names and descriptions of 10 fugitives to the reporter. The resulting feature became a major story and gained national attention. As a consequence of overwhelming public interest, on March 14, 1950, then-Director J. Edgar Hoover inaugurated the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program.