David Brassanini Discusses FBI Role in Americas

Video Transcript

My responsibility is to oversee all the operations both on the administrative side, operational side for the Americas, which covers the western hemisphere from Canada all the way through Argentina including Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America. So in all we have 10 offices. Those 10 offices have several sub offices. And our responsibility as everyone knows is to get out, to work with our local partners and to enable the Bureau to further its investigative interests.

We have to work internationally. Our crimes we’ve noticed are going further and further outside of our borders. We have to be prepared so that when we identify the international nexus out front we have somebody down range on the ground that can help us resolve, go to our local partners, “Hey, here’s the problem we have back home—a fugitive that might have left and now is hiding here we believe. Can you help us find them?”

Although we may not have jurisdiction in the country that we’re located, let’s say El Salvador today. Even though we don’t have jurisdiction here we have the ability to reach across and talk to our folks, talk to our partners here who do have jurisdiction, work with them, give them the lead and say “Hey, by the way, we’re looking for this fugitive, do you know where he is? Can we help you? Is there something you might need to help find him, whether it be training, whether it be other sophisticated techniques that we can use to identify, find this fugitive. Then we will work with those partners to bring that together and work on that as a whole.