Under President Donald Trump, purported fraudsters who once vanished overseas now find the map shrinking, as Kash Patel’s new FBI Most Wanted Fraudsters list has produced six captures across multiple continents in three months – fugitives who had accumulated 4,000 days at large and $2 billion in alleged losses.

The FBI director recently announced the list as part of President Trump's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which is led by Vice President JD Vance. 

The most wanted posters were paired with the recent Ohio Medicaid takedown in which four people and multiple companies were charged and 14 vehicles as well as seven bank accounts worth $600,000 were seized. The posters feature the traditional FBI Most Wanted format with a photo, aliases, charges, alleged dollar amounts, last-known location, reward, and tip line.

"I really think this list is very important, especially when you look at California and the way they're trying to outlaw anybody looking into fraud," former FBI Agent Jonathan Gilliam told Just The News. "I think this is a very, very important thing that they're actually putting a face to these people so that they can start seeing exactly who's doing this. This fraud is the biggest robber of taxpayer monies that there is."

The bureau framed the roster as a third official wanted list, joining the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists, and aimed it at suspects accused of siphoning taxpayer programs at scale.

Swift action by the FBI

The tempo was immediate. Within two weeks, two names were already off the list. In five weeks, the count hit four, with those suspects charged in schemes totaling nearly $1.8 billion and a combined 3,500 days on the run, each returned from overseas through foreign transfers of custody. 

By early September, the FBI cited that captured subjects were linked to more than $2 billion and nearly 4,000 days as fugitives; Patel then told Vance that five had been taken in three months across three continents.

The sixth came over the weekend of September 12–13. 

Emylee Thai, accused in a genetic-testing scheme whose laboratory billed Medicare about $142 million and collected roughly $95 million, was seized in Vietnam after hiding there since at least 2023. 

She has also been known as Kelsey Tan, Thu Anh Thai and Kimberly Le-Thai. KHOU-TV in Houston reported earlier this week that she has been arrested by the FBI. 

Just the News has not been able to determine her exact whereabouts and whether she is represented by counsel, so was therefore unable to reach her for comment.

Patel put her alleged Medicaid fraud exceeded $100 million and said the six captures now span almost every continent. He wants the fraud list to match the resolve of the traditional Top Ten and to double the capture count by year’s end. 

Other accused fraudsters follow the same trail abroad 

Herbert Leon Kimble, tied to a $1.2 billion telemedicine Medicaid case dating to 2014, was taken in the Philippines. Elaine Angene Escoe, charged in a $32 million COVID-relief wire-fraud scheme, was found in Jamaica living as “Harley Newman.” Khalid Ahmed Satary remains listed in a $547 million genetic-testing conspiracy and was believed to be in the United Arab Emirates. Later additions included SNAP, Pentagon-contract, and investor-fraud suspects. 

Vance is not a ceremonial co-star. Patel repeatedly credits him as the author of the list and chairman of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, created by executive order in March. 

This week, Vance stood with Patel, Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler in Kansas City, Missouri, to announce that roughly 870,000 borrowers tied to an estimated $39 billion in suspected Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan activity would be barred from future federal loans. 

“If you screwed the American taxpayer, the federal government is now going to say you’re cut off," Vance said.

$245.7 billion in estimated fraud uncovered during Trump’s second term

The wanted list is a sliver of a larger ledger. The White House Fraud Ledger now posts $245.7 billion in estimated fraud uncovered since January 2025, $62.9 billion stopped on an annualized basis through administrative cuts, and $59.1 billion enforced through indictments, settlements, and penalties. Department of Health and Human Services accounts for $96.4 billion uncovered; the SBA for $122.9 billion. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services deferred more than $2 billion in Medicaid funding from California and $500 million from Minnesota. 

A June healthcare sweep charged 455 defendants in 45 states and territories with over $6.5 billion in alleged false claims.

The DOJ said in April it was carrying 8,000 active fraud cases. A new National Fraud Enforcement Division, the first DOJ division in two decades, was stood up to keep the pipeline moving.

The second-term posture appears clear: freeze the money, name the fugitives, and prosecute across health care, pandemic loans, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), contracts, and student aid at the same time.

From DOGE to Comer’s Oversight Track

The hunt did not begin with wanted posters. It began with the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) post-inauguration audit of contracts, grants, and benefit streams, and with referrals that Trump said were going to Justice. 

Parallel to that executive track, House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., built a legislative route: a Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee to work with DOGE, plus a Minnesota social-services investigation that produced a committee report accusing Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison of delaying action on schemes that included the nonprofit Feed Our Future taking $250 million in federal pandemic-related money.

Comer said the Minnesota file would become “a blueprint” for other states – California hospice billing, Ohio and New York Medicaid waivers among them – and that waste, fraud, and abuse “cannot be tolerated anywhere.” 

Many of the cases now on Patel’s list and Vance’s docket sit in that overlap: inspectors general, U.S. attorneys, CMS payment holds, and Oversight document demands feeding the same targets. 

Together they are the enforcement half of an argument Trump’s second term has made its governing theme: The money was never missing so much as taken, and the people who took it can be named.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Amanda Head is the White House Correspondent for Just the News. You can follow her here.