Prosecutions of white collar criminals recommended by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) are substantially down this year, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

TRAC estimates that the FY 2013 total will be nearly 7 percent lower than it was in FY 2012 and only about half what it was ten years ago — down 45 percent.

While the FBI has long been considered the federal government’s premier agency when it comes to white collar crime, and the number of its agents has increased — from 11,097 in 2001 to 13,812 in 2012 — the 9/11 attacks of 2001 prompted the agency to focus more and more of its investigative powers on trying to deal with international and domestic terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

During FY 2012 the Justice Department said the government obtained 8.4 white collar crime prosecutions for every one million people in the United States.

If the pace seen during the first ten months of FY 2013 continues at the same rate, there will be 7.8 white collar crime prosecutions per one million people in the United States this year.