Courtney John Barrett Sr. was indicted on September 22 on two counts of sexual abuse of a minor in Minnesota. He was one of 118 people arrested during a six-month FBI surge called "Operation Not Forgotten" that ran from April 1 through September 30.
Twenty-five child victims were identified or located during that same window.
FBI Director Kash Patel's operation didn't just produce arrests. It produced numbers that make the Bureau's recent history look like a long, expensive nap. The surge generated 41 federal charges, recovered 72 weapons, conducted 990 interviews, executed 232 searches, and supported 548 investigations across Indian Country. Compared to the 2025 version of the same operation, arrests jumped 123 percent. Federal charges climbed 52 percent. Investigations worked rose 59 percent.
Those aren't marginal improvements. That's what happens when you point the FBI at actual predators instead of parents who got too loud at a school board meeting.
The operation spanned reservations from Wind River in Wyoming to the Navajo Nation and Fort Apache in Arizona to Red Lake in Minnesota. In Wyoming alone, 18 people were indicted on charges including alleged murder, assault, and child abuse. One defendant is accused of shooting a passenger in the head inside a moving vehicle. Another case involves a 10-year-old victim with severe physical trauma. In Arizona, charges included aggravated sexual abuse of a child under 12.
These aren't abstract policy wins. These are specific monsters who were walking free six months ago.
The broader umbrella operation — Steadfast Promise — is even larger. Since April, the FBI has opened more than 1,200 new investigations, charged 678 subjects, made over 700 arrests, recovered 2,260 weapons, and executed 140 drug seizures. Four hundred FBI agents are now dedicated to Indian Country cases, supported by 30 Safe Trails Task Forces working alongside tribal police and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit.
Patel also launched a public-facing program called "Voices Not Forgotten" — a searchable map of unresolved cases on tribal lands with rewards up to $25,000 for information on homicides, kidnappings, and missing persons. In August, more than 200 tribal law-enforcement partners attended a joint conference. Names on the map include Angel Beach, Sa'wade Birdinground, Maleeka "Mollie" Boone, Logan Warrior Goings, Mary Johnson Davis, and Emily Pike.
The previous FBI leadership spent years assuring Congress that resources were stretched thin and priorities had to be balanced. Somehow those balanced priorities included surveilling Catholic parishes and flagging social media posts from military veterans, but couldn't manage to locate children being abused on federal land. The resource problem was never resources. It was what the resources were pointed at.
For the critics who spent three years calling Patel unqualified for the job — the guy whose confirmation hearings featured dire warnings about politicizing the Bureau — the scorecard is now public. One hundred eighteen arrests. Twenty-five children found. A 123 percent increase over last year.
Four thousand Indian Country investigations remain open. The operation continues.