Every year, thousands of Native Americans go missing or are killed in America’s Indian Country, according to the FBI. Now, the agency is offering a minimum $25,000 reward for help finding them or solving the crimes.
Through its “Voices Not Forgotten” initiative, the FBI is bringing new light to more than 50 cases that remain unsolved in tribal communities. The bureau works with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to investigate federal crimes on nearly 200 Native American reservations.
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At the end of 2025, there were almost 1,500 active cases involving missing indigenous people, according to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. Not all of those cases led to federal investigations.
What the FBI is doing
The FBI hopes increasing the rewards — some of which had been in the range of $5,000 to $10,000 — will spur people to come forward. The bureau launched a webpage that features a searchable map with links to posters looking for information in the cases it’s highlighting.
The new initiative is part of a broader push, “Operation Not Forgotten.” It was launched in 2023 “to surge investigative, intelligence, and victim service support to Indian country offices to assist with unresolved violent crime cases.”
The FBI says the new operation was launched amid calls for easier public access to information on the cases from tribal communities and from the Department of Justice’s Not Invisible Act Commission.
In its announcement, the FBI put the spotlight on six missing people: Angel Beach, Sa’Wade Birdinground, Maleeka “Mollie” Boone, Logan Warrior Goings, Mary Johnson (Davis) and Emily Pike.
Anyone with information in these or any other cases can call 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit a tip at tips.fbi.gov. Tips may be left anonymously.
Part of a bigger problem
Fear No Fact.
Overall, more than 1.5 million American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The new initiative highlights a bigger issue among tribal communities.
Every year from 2020 to 2025 – excluding 2022, in which data was only released for those age 21 and under – at least 9,500 indigenous people were reported missing. More than 200 of those cases were still active by the end of each year.
It’s even worse for indigenous women. About 55% of the Native Americans who go missing each year are females, most of them under the age of 18.
And women’s murder rates on some reservations are 10 times higher than the national average. While there’s no specific, comprehensive data on how many indigenous people are murdered each year in the U.S., homicide is one of the leading causes of death for American Indian and Alaskan Natives.
A 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice found that more than 84% of American Indian and Alaska Native women experience violence in their lifetimes and more than 56% experience sexual violence.
Law enforcement officials say it’s often difficult to get a comprehensive understanding of crimes against indigenous people because of jurisdictional gaps; inconsistent data collection among state, local, federal and tribal authorities; and underreporting of crimes.
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