Eric Velez-Villar – Executive Assistant Director
Intelligence Branch

In August 2014, Director James Comey named Eric Velez-Villar executive assistant director of the FBI’s Intelligence Branch. Mr. Velez most recently served as assistant director of the Directorate of Intelligence.

Mr. Velez-Villar joined the FBI in 1985 working in the San Juan Division and became a special agent in 1992. He was first assigned to the San Antonio Field Office, where he worked organized crime and drug matters, and then returned to the San Juan Field Office, where he investigated public corruption. In 2000, Mr. Velez-Villar was promoted to FBI Headquarters as a supervisory special agent and was detailed to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Operations Division, coordinating major drug trafficking investigations throughout the United States. In 2002, he transferred to the Los Angeles Field Office, supervising organized crime and drug matters and the Joint Terrorism Task Force. In 2004, he was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the counterterrorism program in the same office. In 2006, Mr. Velez-Villar was appointed deputy director of the Terrorist Screening Center in Washington, D.C., and in 2008, he went back to the Los Angeles Field Office as the special agent in charge of the newly created Intelligence Division. In September 2009, Mr. Velez-Villar was named the deputy assistant director for the Directorate of Intelligence; he was appointed the assistant director in January 2012.

Mr. Velez-Villar was a recipient of the 2008 Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service and a 2011 recipient of the Presidential Rank Award—the nation’s highest civil service award.