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The FBI has issued a nationwide warning about a surge in crimes involving individuals impersonating US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

Getting into it: First reported by WIRED and later picked up by other outlets, the FBI bulletin (dated October 17, 2025) details a trend of violent crimes carried out by individuals posing as ICE agents. The bulletin, obtained by the transparency group Property of the People, outlines five specific incidents across several states in which suspects used ICE-branded clothing, forged badges, and police-style gear to gain victims’ trust before committing crimes such as robbery, kidnapping, and sexual assault.

According to the bulletin, these cases include a New York robbery where three men in black vests entered a restaurant, tied up employees, and robbed an ATM (acts made possible because the victims believed the men were ICE agents). In Brooklyn, a man posed as an immigration officer to lure a woman into a stairwell where he attempted to rape her, and in North Carolina, another impersonator entered a motel room and threatened deportation if the woman did not have sex with him. These incidents, the FBI warns, make it increasingly difficult for civilians to distinguish between legitimate law enforcement activity and criminal behavior, further eroding public trust in actual officers.

The FBI called on officers to “adequately identify themselves” during operations and fully cooperate when civilians ask to verify their identity. The bulletin stresses the importance of interagency coordination to confirm whether an enforcement action attributed to ICE is legitimate, and it encourages proactive outreach efforts to educate the public about how to identify fake officers.

This bulletin comes shortly after the sentencing of Matthew Ryan Johnston, a California man convicted of impersonating an ICE agent and possessing unregistered destructive devices. Johnston, 26, used fake ICE uniforms, badges, and even emergency lights on his vehicle to stage multiple fraudulent law enforcement interactions in 2017. He chased down a vehicle using illegal red and blue lights, took a false report about an illegal individual, and pretended to be an ICE officer to patrons at a strip club. When law enforcement searched his home, they discovered a cache of weapons, body armor labeled “ICE,” thousands of rounds of ammunition, and several improvised explosive devices (including pipe bombs). He was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison.