The Bureau of Magical Investigation (commonly known as the BMI) is a unit of the Division of Magical Law Enforcement of the U.S. Department of Magic. The BMI operatives are elite investigators of magical crime in the United States. The BMI is forbidden by statute from operating outside U.S. territory. The Bureau's director in the early 1990s was Stoughton Malden Maryland, Jr., who began his career at the BMI in the late 1960s as a liaison to the muggle Secret Service.