NEW YORK – A suspicious was arrested on Monday in the northeastern United States as part of the investigation into the murder of a health insurance giant’s chief executive officer last week in New York, police and the city’s mayor’s office said.
“Members of the Altoona Police Department arrested Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old man, for possession of firearms. At this time, we believe this is the person we are looking for,” said Jessica Tisch, Chief of the New York Police, during a press conference with the New York Mayor, Eric Adams.
The man was taken by local police to a court Pennsylvania after 6:00 p.m. local (11:00 p.m. GMT) on Monday, and accompanied by detectives from New York, where he was processed, according to US media.
After being questioned earlier, investigators charged him with possession of fake IDs and a gun.
A weapon with characteristics similar to the one used to shoot executive Brian Thompson was found on him, according to NBC News and other media, citing sources close to the case.
Before the judge
Mangione is due in court on December 23.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said the man would face murder charges in New York state, something police had anticipated.
“We do not kill people in cold blood to resolve political differences or express a point of view,” he claimed.
Authorities are investigating the possibility that the perpetrator used a long-barreled veterinary pistol, normally used to euthanize animals, to commit the murder.
The suspect was seen at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona by a customer who notified authorities, The New York Times reported.
He also had fake IDs similar to those used by the killer before the crime, the outlet added.
One of them was the one used to check into a Manhattan hostel before the attack, discovered along with a document that spoke of Mangione’s “motivation and mentality,” the NYPD said.
Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, studied at the University of Pennsylvania and had been living in Hawaii before the murder.
Police told reporters that Mangione possessed material that suggested he had “ill will toward corporate America.”
brazen crime
The gunman walked up behind Thompson, 50, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, and shot him last Wednesday in front of bystanders, in an attack captured on a surveillance camera and seen since. by millions of people.
Video footage shows Thompson on the sidewalk in front of the New York Hilton Midtown when a man wearing a hooded jacket with the lower part of his face covered approaches him from behind and shoots him several times, after which the executive collapses to the ground. floor.
The murderer fled on a bicycle in the direction of Central Park, the immense lung of Manhattan, where his trail was lost.
While the New York Police Department said detectives had no updates, the Altoona Police Department did not respond to requests for comment about the detained man.
Possible revenge?
Thompson was attending an investor conference in the Midtown business district. The crime occurred in front of the Hilton hotel, in one of the busiest areas of the Manhattan district, the tourist center of the Big Apple.
Police have not yet released possible motives and have not confirmed media reports that the words “delay” and “deny” – language often used by insurance companies to reject claims – were written on bullet casings found at the scene. of crime.
UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest health insurance companies in the United States, with 440,000 employees. In the third quarter of the year it had a turnover of 100.8 billion dollars.
Father of two children, Thompson had been with the company for more than twenty years and since 2021 he had led its health subsidiary UnitedHealthcare, which has about 140,000 employees and offers health plans to private employers and people insured by state programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
