America’s Most Wanted

How to get on the FBI's list of top fugitives

The FBI runs the worlds’ most famous Top Ten List. Unlike Billboard’s Top Ten, which is pretty straightforward as the highest selling albums of the week, the workings of the FBI Fugitive List are murky.

The FBI List doesn’t even rank by body count. Of course Osama Bin Laden is up there, he’s like the Beyonce of the fugitive world, always in demand. But then you have some overrated molesters and drug dealers on the top ten who may not even have killed anyone, much like the American Idol contestants of crime.

Only when an existing Most Wanted gets caught or dies does a spot open up on the list. Aspiring criminals only get one shot at the top and it's a make or break moment. Open slots gets filled by an FBI sub-committee informed by survey results from the Bureau’s 56 field offices. They consider the criminal’s dangerousness but also whether publicity will help bring them to justice. Avril Lavigne will never make the list. She’s talks like she’s dangerous, but isn’t; and publicity just seems to encourage her.

The historically male-dominated Most Wanted List now has a lone female fugitive on it -- which just shows that a woman can do anything a man can do, if she puts her mind to it.