FBI Director Kash Patel said this week that the bureau has cleared a backlog of DNA samples that once topped 1.8 million and reduced it to zero in under a year and a half.

The backlog covered DNA collected from federally convicted offenders, arrestees, and non-citizen detainees under the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005, which requires the samples be sent to the FBI Laboratory Division for processing. Patel joined the Lab Division team over the weekend to mark the milestone, according to the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs.

In a statement provided to Breitbart News, the director tied the backlog to prior leadership and credited his team with clearing it.

This was yet another example of institutionalized bureaucracy from prior leadership that left crimes across America unsolved. When we got here, there had been a backlog nearly 2 million samples  — literally breaking statutory requirements and hindering the FBI’s work — and we immediately got to work.

The FBI receives roughly 50,000 samples a month, the office said. Those samples are processed for entry into the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, where investigators compare them against DNA recovered from unsolved homicides, mass shootings, and sexual assaults.

The director said the bureau attacked the problem with new resources after he took over.

“This FBI dedicated more resources, more equipment, improved IT systems, and used business analytics for DNA processing — and thanks to incredible work from our Lab team the backlog is officially at zero,” Patel continued.

In a separate statement posted online in August, the director put the figure at more than 1.81 million samples and said the pile had been growing by roughly 75,000 samples a month. “DNA profiles belong in CODIS helping law enforcement solve crimes — not stalled in a government backlog,” Patel wrote.

The bureau’s own fiscal year 2027 budget request states the CODIS processing backlog reached 1.8 million by the end of fiscal 2024, saying sustained volume increases outpaced DNA program resources.

Patel repeated the figure in September during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing, telling lawmakers the Lab Division had carried a backlog of more than 1.8 million samples for years before his confirmation and that it now stood at zero. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) cited FBI data showing criminal arrests up 80 percent and violent crime arrests up 90 percent during the director’s tenure.

The announcement comes as the FBI touts a record drop in violent crime. The bureau reported in August that murder and non-negligent manslaughter fell an estimated 18.1 percent in 2025, the largest year-to-year decline in violent crime since the agency began national estimates in 1936.