Six FBI Most Wanted Fraudsters Fled Overseas. In Three Months, All Six Were Caught

For years, six people charged with stealing from American taxpayers bet that a border would save them. One cut off her ankle monitor and flew to Vietnam on a private plane under a false identity. One drove into Canada and went on to India within a week of pleading not guilty. One was caught in the Middle East with a fake Mexican passport. One was living in Jamaica as "Harley Newman."

All six are now in custody. FBI Director Kash Patel took a victory lap on Sunday morning.

"These fugitives thought crossing international borders and hiding overseas would put them beyond the reach of American law enforcement," Patel wrote. "They were wrong." Four continents, he said, more than 4,000 combined days on the run, and more than $2 billion tied to the list alone.

Every one of those captures came in the three months after the FBI launched the Most Wanted Fraudsters list on June 4, a list Patel credits to Vice President JD Vance and the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud that Vance chairs. We went through the FBI, Justice Department and foreign-government records on all six. Here is who they are, what they are charged with, where they were caught, and how long they ran.

The six

Said Abdullahi Ereg: Feeding Our Future, $4.2 million. Ereg ran Evergreen Grocery and Deli in Minneapolis under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of Minnesota's child-nutrition fraud. Prosecutors say that from April 2020 to April 2021 he submitted false claims to the Federal Child Nutrition Program and took in more than $4.2 million, at times claiming to serve more than 3,000 meals twice a day, seven days a week. He was indicted on June 24, 2024, but was living overseas, his exact whereabouts unknown. The day after the list went up with his face on it, he told prosecutors through his lawyer that he wanted to come back. He surrendered to FBI agents at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on June 10, the first capture from the list. His wife, who worked at the business, had already pleaded guilty to money laundering.

Herbert Leon Kimble: $1.2 billion in Medicare fraud. Kimble was charged in 2019 in a $1.2 billion telemedicine and medical-equipment scheme in South Carolina that sold medically unnecessary orthopedic braces to Medicare, and he pleaded guilty. Then he skipped his 2024 sentencing, failing to appear on three separate occasions, and fled to the Philippines. He was one of the original eight on the list. The Justice Department says he was apprehended on June 8, four days after the launch. The Philippine Bureau of Immigration says its fugitive search unit made the arrest in a commercial area of Pasig City, and he was deported June 18. In August he pleaded guilty again, to conspiracy to defraud the United States and failure to appear, and agreed to a sentence of 15 to 20 years and nearly $200 million in restitution.

Khalid Ahmed Satary: $547 million billed to Medicare. Satary was indicted in 2019 in the Eastern District of Louisiana in what the Justice Department calls "one of the largest health care fraud schemes ever charged." Prosecutors say his labs billed Medicare more than $547 million for cancer genetic tests nobody needed, driven by kickbacks to doctors, recruiters and telemarketers. A judge let him out on bond over the government's objection, and prosecutors say he kept billing Medicare through labs in Houston anyway. In December 2022 a warrant was issued for his arrest, he failed to appear for a court hearing, and he fled the country. On July 20, regional partners in the Middle East caught him carrying a fake Mexican passport under a fake name. He was flown into Washington Dulles.

Elaine Angene Escoe: $32 million in COVID relief. Prosecutors say Escoe and five co-defendants filed more than 90 fake applications for Paycheck Protection Program loans, disaster loans and restaurant and shuttered-venue grants, using fake tax documents and bank records, sometimes taking kickbacks of as much as half the loan. The scheme collected more than $32 million. Her five co-defendants have all been convicted or pleaded guilty; one, Alfred Davis, was sentenced to 235 months. Escoe was due in federal court in West Palm Beach on June 5, 2025, and never showed. She fled to Jamaica, where, acting on information developed by the FBI, the Jamaica Constabulary Force and its Jamaica Fugitive Apprehension Team caught her after a tip. Patel says she was living as "Harley Newman." She was back in South Florida on July 25.

Manjit Singh Bedi: $600,000 in SNAP benefits. Bedi, 64, a naturalized citizen who ran a small grocery in Tacoma, Wash., is charged with swiping customers' food-stamp cards for cash at 50 cents on the dollar and keeping the other half, pocketing at least $600,000 between March 2024 and June 2025 for food he never sold. He pleaded not guilty on April 22, 2026, and within a week had fled, driving across the border into Canada and going on to India. He went on the list on Sept. 3. Punjab Police picked him up in Jalandhar within days, and he landed back in Washington state on Oct. 14. Prosecutors say they will ask the judge to hold him until trial.

Emylee Thai: $142 million billed to Medicare. Thai owned a Houston-area laboratory that, according to her 2022 indictment, paid marketers a cut of the reimbursements for doctors' orders and DNA samples from Medicare patients, for genetic tests that were not medically necessary. The lab billed Medicare about $142 million and was paid about $95 million. She was released with a location monitor. On Dec. 8, 2022, the monitor came off, and the FBI says she fled the country on a private airplane to Vietnam using a false identity. Prosecutors later added a charge of destroying records in a federal investigation. Patel announced on Sept. 14 that she had been arrested in Vietnam, where she had been hiding since at least 2023. The FBI said it was working with its partners to secure her return.

By the numbers

By our count from the dates in the government's own records, the six spent more than 4,000 days on the run, about 4,600 in all, measured from each fugitive's flight, warrant or missed court date to capture. Satary and Thai alone account for nearly 2,700 days.

The money is just as big. Kimble's scheme alone ran to $1.2 billion, and the Philippine government put it at more than $2 billion. Add Satary's $547 million and Thai's $142 million in Medicare billings, Escoe's $32 million in pandemic relief, Ereg's $4.2 million in child-nutrition funds and Bedi's $600,000 in food stamps, and the scale of what this list is chasing is clear. Patel says the list as a whole is tied to more than $2 billion. Except for Kimble, who has pleaded guilty, the charges are allegations.

The map is wide, too. The six were caught in Vietnam, India, the Philippines, the Middle East and Jamaica, and the FBI credited Kenyan, Somali and British authorities with bringing Ereg home.

The partners who made the arrests

None of these captures happened without a foreign government deciding to help, and several of them said so publicly.

"The Philippines will not serve as a sanctuary for fugitives seeking to evade justice in their home countries," Philippine Immigration Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado said after Kimble's arrest, adding that the Bureau of Immigration had put him on its blacklist. Punjab's director general of police, Gaurav Yadav, called Bedi's arrest "a major breakthrough" and said his force "remains relentless in tracking down fugitives and dismantling transnational organised crime networks, ensuring that no one can evade justice by crossing borders."

The Justice Department thanked unnamed "government partners" in the Middle East for Satary and credited the Jamaica Constabulary Force for Escoe. For Ereg, the FBI's man in Minneapolis said it on camera.

Why a fraud list works

The FBI has run its Ten Most Wanted list since 1950. Vance's idea was to aim the same tool at fraud: put the faces out, offer a reward of up to $150,000 a head, and let the public and foreign police do the rest. In Ereg's case, it took one day for him to start negotiating his way home. In Kimble's, four days. In Bedi's, the Punjab Police had him within days of his poster going up.

Look at how these six got away in the first place. Satary was released on bond over the government's objection and allegedly kept defrauding Medicare. Thai was released with an ankle monitor she simply removed. Bedi was allowed to show up in court without being arrested, was told to surrender his passport and stay in Washington, and drove to Canada. Escoe, the FBI says, was notified of her June 5, 2025, court date and skipped it anyway. Every one of them got a chance to face the charges like everybody else, and every one of them ran.

Who is still out there

The list is not finished. As of Oct. 14, 18 people had been put on it and six captured, leaving 12, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle. They include a San Antonio-area man accused of raising about $10 million from more than 400 investors in a Ponzi scheme, who the FBI believes is in Mexico; a woman wanted in a bank fraud scheme in Los Angeles and Orange counties; and a man wanted for allegedly exploiting the Federal Child Nutrition Program during the pandemic.

Anyone who recognizes one of them can send a tip to tips.fbi.gov or call 1-800-CALL-FBI. The full list, with photos, is at fbi.gov/wanted.

The bottom line

Six people allegedly took close to $2 billion from Medicare, from a children's food program, from pandemic relief and from food stamps, and then ran overseas. It took the FBI and its partners three months to bring all six in. Fraud against taxpayers is not a victimless crime, and it is no longer a crime you can outrun with a plane ticket.