OPERATION NOT FORGOTTEN: THE FEDERAL SURGE INTO INDIAN COUNTRY AND THE CASES IT BROUGHT TO LIGHT

The largest coordinated federal push into Indian Country in recent memory has reached its conclusion, bringing with it a wave of arrests, long-delayed indictments, and breakthroughs in cases that had remained frozen for years. For six months, the FBI executed an unprecedented surge of resources into Tribal jurisdictions — a deployment designed to confront the violent crime crisis impacting Indigenous communities across the United States. The results of that surge—now publicly released—show a picture of sweeping field operations, renewed investigative pressure, and the kind of interagency coordination that Tribal leaders have demanded for decades.

The operation, known as Operation Not Forgotten, sent 64 FBI personnel into ten field offices across the country, rotating agents and specialists into 30- to 90-day temporary assignments. Their mission was targeted and direct: support investigations involving Indigenous victims, resolve long-standing violent crime cases, and strengthen partnerships with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Tribal law enforcement agencies who carry an enormous public safety burden with limited resources. For Tribal communities, many spread across vast and remote terrain, the surge represented the kind of federal presence rarely felt at this scale.

Agents deployed to some of the busiest and most strained jurisdictions in the country: Albuquerque, Denver, Detroit, Jackson, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, and Salt Lake City. The surge became the longest nationwide deployment focused on Indian Country crime in FBI history, driven by the need to support homicide cases, child abuse investigations, sexual assault investigations, and situations in which victims had vanished without a trace.

Officials overseeing the surge described it as a necessary response to a reality Tribal communities confront daily: enormous land areas, thin local staffing, and crime scenes that can span miles of isolated desert, backcountry, or reservation housing areas where immediate backup is not an option. For investigators on the ground, the increased staffing allowed for rapid case movement, renewed leads, and an ability to execute operations that had been sitting dormant due to manpower constraints.

Support did not come from the FBI alone. Thirty-six personnel from the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit joined the effort, contributing specialized skills, including ground-penetrating radar, underwater camera systems, sonar searches, and evidence-recovery capabilities rarely available to Tribal departments. Together, the combined teams assisted in over 330 investigations, reinforcing the growing partnership between Tribal police, federal law enforcement, and the technical resources necessary to navigate complex crime scenes across rural and often unforgiving terrain.

The numbers emerging from Fiscal Year 2025 show the impact of this multi-agency surge:
1,260 individuals charged,
1,123 arrests,
304 weapons recovered,
and 458 child victims identified or located.
These figures represent the combined outcomes of Indian Country initiatives nationwide, many of which were accelerated or made possible by Operation Not Forgotten.

Some of the most significant cases include indictments and arrests that reopened long-stagnant files:

• In New Mexico, three individuals—Austin Begay, Jaymes Fage, and Joshua Watkins—were charged in connection with the previously unsolved 2020 murder of Zachariah Shorty, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation.
• Also in New Mexico, Renaldo Descheny was charged in a violent assault involving a firearm, and remains in custody pending trial.
• In Shiprock, investigators arrested Armondo Paul for a fatal stabbing, charging him with second-degree murder.
• Another New Mexico case involved Keanu Lee, who faces charges including aggravated sexual abuse, kidnapping, and assault resulting in serious bodily injury.

The operation also brought closure to cases already in the judicial pipeline:

• Marvin Albert Wauneka received a 40-month sentence for a high-speed drunk-driving crash on the Navajo Nation that killed two passengers.
• In Oregon, Antoine Scott was sentenced for assault resulting in serious bodily injury after attacking a passenger through a vehicle window on the Warm Springs reservation.

Behind each case is the broader reality federal agents confront in Indian Country: high crime rates, multiple-jurisdiction barriers, long distances between investigative points, and decades of under-resourced policing conditions that leave Tribal communities fighting disproportionate levels of violence. At the beginning of Fiscal Year 2025, the FBI’s Indian Country program carried more than 4,300 open investigations, including over 900 death investigations, 1,000 child abuse cases, and more than 500 domestic violence and adult sexual abuse cases. The surge did not erase this backlog, but it brought relief and momentum to communities that have long felt unseen.

Operation Not Forgotten also amplified ongoing efforts addressing missing and murdered Indigenous people — an area where families have waited years, sometimes decades, for answers. The initiative strengthens the reach of the Department’s MMIP Regional Outreach Program, which embeds attorneys and coordinators into U.S. Attorneys’ Offices nationwide to improve support, communication, and investigative follow-through for MMIP cases.

This surge is the third national deployment under Operation Not Forgotten, which over the last three years has supported over 760 cases, resulting in 249 arrests, 235 subjects charged, 109 convictions, and specialized assistance provided to nearly 2,000 victims and families. For Tribal communities where violent crime has historically been met with delayed responses or stalled investigations, these numbers represent more than statistics. They mark steps toward accountability, answers, and long-absent justice.

For many families, the impact of Operation Not Forgotten is measured not in press releases or arrest totals but in the sense that someone finally returned to their case — someone who listened, who searched, who dug through old files, who brought new attention where silence had settled in.

The federal surge has ended, but the work it began continues. The investigations it touched are still moving. The partnerships built during the deployment remain active. And the message is clear: the era of unaddressed violent crime in Indian Country is no longer being ignored at the national level.

There is more work ahead — but these cases show what happens when the resources arrive, the investigators show up, and the forgotten are pursued with the urgency they deserved from the start.

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