The city of Mobile is home to one of the busiest shipping hubs in the entire South. The city of more than 195,000, according to the United States Census Bureau, is home to the largest seaport between Fort Lauderdale, Florida and New Orleans, Louisiana and is the only seaport in the state. The geography of the area makes it one of the more exciting locations for FBI jobs in the region. The Mobile field office is one of two field offices in the state.
The location of the city, on major regional trade routes, makes the city attractive to drug smugglers and other people the FBI may be interested in investigating.
Recent FBI Events in Mobile, AL:
- Feb. 2013- child pornographer arrested and sentences to 35 years in prison.
- Jan. 2013- bank robber Robin Goodwin sentenced.
- Jan. 2013- three people sentenced for kidnapping a child and carjacking a vehicle.
- Dec. 2012- a man was apprehended on terrorism charges.
- Nov. 2012- a man was arrested on charges linked to the theft of more than $6.2 million.
Mobile Alabama FBI Jurisdictions and Satellite Offices
The Mobile field office serves as the regional headquarters for the FBI in Southern Alabama. The jurisdiction of the Mobile office covers 26 counties with a population well over 1 million people in total. Satellite offices, also known as resident agencies, are located in the cities and towns of Auburn, Dothan, Monroeville, Montgomery and Selma. The satellite offices have a much smaller staff than the field office and work to assist local law enforcement with crime scene investigations, among many other duties.
FBI Jobs in Mobile
Evidence Response Team: This team of special agents is dedicated to collecting, processing and recording various types of evidence from crime scenes. Evidence Response Team member jobs involve securing crime scenes, taking photos, collecting evidence and then taking that evidence to labs for processing. The types of evidence can range from physical evidence like blood, DNA and fingerprints to analytical evidence like bullet trajectory, weapons identification and blood splatter pattern analysis. This team has the largest amount of employees in the Mobile department.
Computer Forensics: The Computer Forensics team is made up of agents that specialize in Computer Science and Information Technology. The team is used to extract data and evidence from all types of digital devices. The devices can include personal computers, cell phones and iPads.
Crisis Negotiation Team: This team of special agents is trained to deter and solve hostage situations. Hostage crises are often times some of the most intense and problematic of criminal situations because of the unpredictability involved. Negotiation techniques are the most important weapon in the team’s arsenal, but other tactics such as Specialized Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) deployment and barricade breaching are used when all other solutions fail.
The New Importance of the Cyber Crime Task Force
In the 2013 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama addressed the critical issues of cyber crime. He stated that cyber crime- and cyber terrorism, specifically- pose a huge national threat to the country. In order to combat this problem, Obama has called for the FBI to hire more cyber crime specialists and deploying them in the field.
Both of the field offices in Alabama (Montgomery and Mobile) have a shared Cyber Crime Task Force, which supports FBI jobs dedicated to protecting national security from viruses, computer intrusions and other security threats done via computers and the internet.