IRS criminal investigators played a pivotal role in tracking down the Brown University shooter, ultimately leading the FBI and other law enforcement agencies right to him, sources told The Post.
After the homeless Reddit poster hero known as John helped authorities identify Claudio Neves Valente as the suspect, after following several false trails, the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) team began combing through his financial records.
“At that point, the criminal investigations team became involved and determined where he had obtained the [storage] facility in which he was ultimately located,” a senior official told The Post. “Once the location was identified, they issued an alert to the FBI with information on where he could be found.”
Neves Valente had proven difficult to trace after he was identified because he used European SIM cards and a gizmo that made it harder to track phones, according to officials.
That’s part of why the IRS-CI team proved to be so critical.
“[Treasury] Secretary Scott Bessent and with the help of IRS CEO Frank Bisignano directed all possible resources to assist the FBI in their pursuit of justice for this unspeakable tragedy,” a Treasury Department spokesperson told The Post.
“IRS Criminal Investigations agents worked tirelessly on this effort.”
Bessent is currently serving in a dual role as commissioner of internal revenue in addition to his duties as Treasury secretary.
The IRS’ law enforcement arm has powerful tools that enable its agents to look through financial transactions, bank account records, and more when working on a criminal case.
“They do a lot more work than that. But that’s the short version,” the senior official added.
Once the IRS-CI helped pinpoint the Salem, New Hampshire, storage facility, the FBI deployed its agents to carry out a search warrant, where they found Neves Valente dead with a satchel and two firearms on Dec. 18.
Neves Valente is believed to have killed himself after shooting Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor Nuno Loureiro in his $1.4 million townhouse.
The two had been in the same academic program in Portugal between 1995 and 2000. Neves Valente then went to Brown University between 2000 and 2001.
IRS-CI, which has agents across the country, dispatched a small team to Rhode Island and had at least a dozen people working on the case shortly after the tragic Dec. 13 shooting in which Neves Valente killed two students and injured nine.
Law enforcement struggled for days to get solid leads on the Brown shooter. That changed when an anonymous tip pointed the feds to John’s Reddit post.
John had claimed on Reddit that he saw a suspicious man in a gray Nissan with Florida plates, which he noted was “possibly a rental,” near Brown’s campus ahead of the shooting.
The hero tipster recounted his odd encounters with Neves Valente, 48, noting that his attire was “inappropriate and inadequate for the weather” and that the future shooter switched directions every time the two saw each other.
The tip prompted the feds to comb through surveillance footage and find the sedan, according to an affidavit.
Neves Valente, a Portuguese national, had quietly cased Brown’s campus for weeks before carrying out the deadly rampage.
John’s tip also helped the feds connect the Brown attack to the shooting of Loureiro.
The homeless hero is being compensated by the feds, according to officials.
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