UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect Luigi Mangione may have had money in crypto, it was revealed on Friday.
A cryptocurrency password, written on a slip of paper, was recovered from Mangione’s backpack when he was arrested at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s last year, five days after the health insurance giant’s CEO, Brian Thompson, was fatally shot, according to police testimony in a Manhattan courtroom.
A photo of the piece of paper was shown in court as part of an ongoing pretrial evidence-suppression hearing in Mangione’s New York murder case.
In the photo, the center of the piece of paper is obscured by a large block reading, “Redacted Crypto Seed Phrase.” No details were provided in court describing what, if any, cryptocurrency Mangione may have had access to.
A crypto seed phrase is a random sequence of words used to lock and unlock a cryptocurrency account.
It’s year-old news that cops say Mangione had some $7,000 in large bills on him when he was arrested, after what prosecutors describe as his five days as a fugitive.
It’s also not new that the Baltimore native and former software engineer was tech-savvy. Mangione’s possessions, as described during the hearing, included a MacBook laptop, an iPhone, multiple thumb drives, and a small circuit board wrapped in cardboard.
It had not been previously revealed that Mangione may have been into crypto. Still, he once gained a small following among crypto investors.
Soon after his arrest, a LUIGI memecoin was launched in his name, and quickly surged in value, reaching a $60 million market capitalization, according to multiple contemporaneous accounts in the crypto press.
Just as quickly, it cratered; a $1,000 investment made at the coin’s launch, in mid-December 2024, would be worth about $25 now.
Mangione’s evidence suppression hearing is scheduled to start its third week on Tuesday.
