IRS-CI helped catch Brown University killer

Agents with the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation unit reportedly helped track down the shooter who terrorized Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, killing two students and wounding nine others, and killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor two days later at his home.

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The killer, Claudia Manuel Neves Valente, was eventually tracked down by FBI agents earlier this month with the help of IRS-CI agents after a tip from a Reddit user named John who had seen Valente acting suspiciously around the Brown University campus. The Reddit user posted about seeing Valente in a Nissan van with Florida plates. IRS-CI agents analyzed financial records, according to the New York Post, and worked with FBI agents and local law enforcement, who checked nearby surveillance camera footage of the suspect.

Valente had used European SIM cards and a gadget that initially made it difficult to trace him, But the IRS-CI team got involved and discovered he had rented a storage facility in which he was ultimately located and where he killed himself as local law enforcement searched the facility for him. 

IRS CEO Frank Bisgnano discussed the investigation with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business last week. “Yesterday, I had the opportunity to congratulate the approximately dozen people who volunteered on the ground as soon as it occurred to go there and engage while the shooter was there,” he said. “Those are signs of all the great Americans we have working within the federal government.”