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FBI Director Kash Patel revealed a slew of security concerns, including cyber threats, drones and the potential for lone-wolf attacks ahead of the World Cup, which will draw millions of visitors across North America.
Officials are expecting three million people to visit for the tournament, which will be jointly hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Out of the 104 total matches in the expanded 2026 World Cup, 78 games will be played in the U.S., while the remaining 26 will be split between its neighbors to the north and south.
Host countries are aggressively ramping up security and intelligence operations to safely stage the much-anticipated soccer matches across 11 U.S. host cities.
“It’s everything from traditional cop work going out to the streets, talking to communities and saying, ‘Hey, do you guys know of any bad actors? Have you heard of anyone that might want to do harm to people or venues?'” Patel told Fox News correspondent Brooke Taylor. “That’s our big security goal for us at the FBI.”
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FBI Director Kash Patel outlined the top security concerns for the FBI ahead of the 2026 World Cup. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
In an effort to foil any lone-wolf actors, the FBI has created a special operations center at its headquarters to centralize and analyze incoming data about potential threats.
“When we’re talking about cyber actors, those [are ones] that come in and hack our infrastructure and hold data hostage for monetary payments. So we are taking all of that information to one place and centralizing, at least for us at the FBI, at our headquarters component,” Patel said.
Patel added that outside of major nation-state adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, lone-wolf threats pose the greatest concern to national security.
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“Separate and apart from that, [those] who are doing similar activities, or the disparate actors, the lone wolves that are out there, whether it’s in the cyber realm or the violent crime realm,” he said. “So we are heavily relying on the community and state locals and asking them over and over again, ‘What are you seeing in the online spaces? What are you seeing in the chat groups?'”
Law enforcement is also heavily focused on combating the online radicalization of individuals who may feel compelled to carry out domestic attacks, Patel noted.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 winner trophy is displayed at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, as the draw for the 2026 World Cup European qualifiers begins on Dec. 13, 2024. (Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu)
Drones are another top-tier anxiety for federal officials, given that they vary wildly in size and can be easily operated by a pilot far from the target location.
“The critical component that we at the FBI have been focusing down on is teaching our state and local partners how we handle drones and how they can handle drones with us,” Patel said. “And then collectively, it’s a force multiplier to have thousands of people out there, tens of thousands of police officers out there looking at the drone threat that’s coming in as it comes in, because it’s so quick and dynamic.”
To counter this, Patel revealed that the FBI has developed technology capable of disabling problem drones mid-flight, a tool they have shared with local law enforcement partners during recent specialized training programs.
An image shows the Department of Justice and FBI headquarters with an overlay of FBI Director Kash Patel. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Among the immediate domestic threats the FBI is tracking is a sharp rise in antisemitic violence. Patel pointed to the recent Hezbollah-inspired attack at a Michigan synagogue, where a man packed his pickup truck with gasoline and commercial-grade fireworks, rammed it into the building, and opened fire with an assault rifle before taking his own life during a shootout with the temple’s private security team.
In the 14 months since the Trump administration took office, the FBI has arrested more than 45,000 violent offenders in an aggressive push to dismantle clandestine sleeper cells and violent networks across the country.
A general view of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., ahead of the 2026 World Cup on May 11, 2026. (Jay Biggerstaff/Getty Images)
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The bureau also touted its recent success rate in tracking down high-profile international targets.
“The FBI have arrested eight of the top ten [most wanted fugitives] in the world in 14 months,” Patel said, noting that the figure marks twice as many major captures as the prior four years combined.