By Steve Neavling
Matthew DeSarno, special agent in charge of the Dallas Field Office, announced Tuesday that he’s retiring from the FBI after 20 years with the bureau.
DeSarno took the helm at the Dallas Field Office in May 2019.
“For me, this has been the best job I could ever imagine having,” DeSarno told reporters, NBC-DFW reports.
At the age of 29, DeSarno joined the bureau as a special agent in 2002, following in his father’s footsteps.
“I always wanted to be in the FBI. My father was an FBI agent,” DeSarno said.
DeSarno spent most of his career focused on gangs and counterterrorism.
He started out in the San Diego Field Office, where he was assigned to the gang group of the Violent Crimes Task Force.
In 2007, he was promoted to supervisor special agent and assigned to the Safe Streets and Gang Unit at FBI headquarters.
DeSarno transferred to the Chicago Field Office in 2009 and led the Joint Task Force on Gangs.
He became assistant special agent in charge in 2013 and managed programs white-collar crime, public corruption and civil rights. He later took over responsibility for the violent crime, transnational organized crime, SWAT, evidence response, and crisis negotiation programs in Chicago.
In 2015, he was named the chief of the Strategic Operations Section of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division at headquarters, where he helped target global counterterrorism targeting and counterterrorism human intelligence operations.
In 2017, DeSarno was promoted to deputy assistant director of the Counterterrorism Division and provided leadership oversight for the bureau’s international terrorism investigations and operations.
Before joining the FBI, DeSarno served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army.
