In fact, more than 400 special agents and more than 200 investigative analysts will be added for I.R.S. criminal investigations in 2005 alone.
The bureau has a large staff of employees, including more than 10,000 special agents who perform investigative work.
Mr. Jordan, now one of about a dozen assistant directors at headquarters, will become one of more than 50 special agents in charge of field offices around the country.
The former chief of the F.B.I.'s International Terrorism Section stated that he had more than 100 fewer Special Agents working on international terrorism on Sept. 11 than he did in August 1998.
In America biohackers used to risk getting arrested, but in recent years the FBI has opted for a more enlightened approach: local special agents talk to community labs; the agency organises an annual DIYbio conference; it is even a sponsor of iGEM.
"This part was Gibbs's entire plan, and makes the story more concrete and more believable," Morlock explained to special agents last May.
Neither Bresson nor the FBI Web site listed UFOs or paranormal phenomena among the FBI's areas of interest, but Bresson acknowledges that, because of their special skills, scientists selected as special agents are more likely than most to end up working in other exciting areas, such as counterterrorism.
More than 80percentt of FBI special agents are men.
During a second day of testimony in a preliminary hearing for Mr. Holmes, who is accused of killing 12 people and wounding more than 50, Special Agent Garrett Gumbinner recounted how Mr. Holmes, a former neuroscience student, detailed to investigators his meticulous plot to blow up his apartment as a diversion.
After a decade in which the number of auditors, tax collectors and special agents shrank by more than a fourth even as the tax system grew larger and more complex, the capacity of the I.R.S. to press the battle is severely limited, a variety of tax law experts said.
