[8] This lack of experience manifested itself in his management of the delivery routes and assets, where he granted liberty beyond the rule book to his subordinates for the sake of completing the task with the resources available.
[10] On August 29, 1983, he rented a Malibu at a non-credit locale named Ugly Duckling Rent-A-Car and brought it to the Wells Fargo depot as a test to see if McKeon's laxity would allow it to be parked inside the delivery van area adjacent to the vault.
[10] On September 12, 1983, four days after his planned wedding, Gerena drove the rented car to work, and after arriving at 11 a.m., discovered that he and a coworker, Tim Girard, were locked out of the depot.
[10] The manager recruited Shewokis, who was not legally allowed to carry a gun, as his only companion in a route that took them to West Springfield and emptied the depot's vault into the vehicle they were driving.
[13] McKeon, in a haste due to a previous commitment, explained to Gerena that the funds from West Springfield were still in the van as the latter began unloading money bags into the vault by himself.
[14] While held at gunpoint, McKeon chose to follow orders, while Girard assumed that it was a joke and did not realize it was serious initially, which prevented him from drawing the weapon fast enough to react in time.
[16] Gerena apologized for the assault and moved the manager away from the vault door, systematically selecting which money to remove from it, leaving behind coins and most uncirculated currency.
[20] The police, however, were skeptical when they were told that at least five million dollars were taken from the vault and assumed that the case was easy since the identity of the perpetrator was known, instead focusing on securing the crime scene.
[29] With the police's morale being affected by a number of false leads and media hype, they interviewed individuals who claimed to have relationships with Gerena, only to later admit that they lied.
[33] The EPB would later draw parallels between the heist and the Boston Tea Party, labeling it "an act of retaliative expropriation against a federal government that had benefited from the Puerto Rican resources since displacing local farmers during the implantation of the sugar cane industry".
[40] Unable to continue this line of inquiry, the interviewers turned to those close to her, with the police discovering that she was a supporter of Puerto Rican independence from an employer that felt that she had once wore a shirt that was "un-American".
[40] A week and a half after the heist, a West Hartford detective was directly told that the "Macheteros did it", but ignored it due to a lack of evidence that Gerena was politically militant.
[48] The organization referred to this as "Operación La Guillotina" and despite claiming success publicly, its strategists were frustrated that due to a lack of vantage points the commandoes had been unable to target the FBI offices directly, the use of registered cars and a deviation from the planned escape route.
[48] The FBI was able to track down the precedence of the cars and were able to find a traffic ticket attributed to a "Pedro Almodova Rivera" and using the information provided in this license, discovered the hideout of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos who had been on their wanted list for 13 years and who they claimed was a Cuban intelligence officer besides a leader in the EPB and coordinator of several pro-independence factions.
[51] The use of the phrase "Big Sleep Heist" previously used by the Boston Herald raised suspicions that Gerena had been in the area or had collaborators there, but the ensuing FBI investigation failed to provide results.
[53] José Rodríguez was placed in charge of the Puerto Rican investigation, while the bureau was experiencing problems piecing together the information due to the EPB's use of pseudonyms.
[56] In April 1984, the Puerto Rico Police casually discovered an EPB safe house while investigating another crime scene, noticing an explosive artifact and a weapons cache.
[57] Despite this, the FBI was unable to track the money until Ojeda complained about the use that people apparently higher in the EPB was giving to it by allowing the Cubans the chance to guard it instead of using a place where it could be handled as a collective without external intervention, inadvertently revealing that it had been transported from Mexico to Cuba to the wiretaps.
[57] In July 1984, the local FBI informed their counterparts in the states of the Cuban involvement, surprising Millan and Duffy, who had assumed that Gerena could be in Canada based on a trip mentioned by an ex-girlfriend and which had led to a collaboration with the Mounted Police and a search there.
[64] In West Hartford, it was reported that an FBI agent leaked to the press that Gerena would be talking to the media on Labor Day, although the date was off the rumor proved accurate.
[66] In it, Gerena congratulated Stillman and fellow reporter Dave Lesher for a story published half a year before, but also noted that their guest, crime author Jay Robert Nash, was only partially correct about his assumption that he had targeted Wells Fargo to get back at the system and get the "American Dream" and promised to clear the misconceptions in the future.
[66] The San Juan headquarters of the Associated Press and EFE received similar postcards criticizing the United States intervention in Latin America and warning of an impending announcement, as did newspaper El Mundo, but unaware of the Hartford angle were unable to do much with them.
[69] On October 19, 1984, an unidentified Machetero contacted a United Press International reporter in Puerto Rico directing her to a communiqué where the EPB took full responsibility for the heist, which was codenamed Pitirre III and considered one in a series of "military economic operative[s]" carried out by the group against Wells Fargo and by extension, the American economy.
[72] On December 26, 1984, Norman Ramírez arrived with the intention of organizing a publicity stunt where they would hand gifts while dressed as kings (a traditional Latin American practice to celebrate the Epiphany), but was soon confronted by the leader of the New York branch of the EPB, who considered it unnecessarily presumptuous.
[75] More than 30 separate locations were raided in the municipalities of Carolina, Caguas, Bayamón, Vega Baja, Luquillo and Guaynabo, and nonlethal tactics were used to ensure a trial.
[83] The case was then taken to Connecticut, with the defendants being transported to an undisclosed location by helicopter and communications with them cut until the next hearing, as stipulated in Section E of the bail and detention statutes.
[86] The defense, led by William Kunstler and Bruce Rubenstein, argued that the use of that kind of security would only bias the community and media against the defendants and demanded to know why they were not allowed to talk with their clients.
[90] In February 1986, Farinacci who had been released on a $500,000 bail, returned to attend hearings in Hartford, he made use of these results to argue the case of the defendants and note that there was concern among independence advocates that the FBI could wire their houses.
[83] On June 2, 1986, the defense requested for the case to move back to Puerto Rico, where the political motives would be understood and argued that the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution offered a right to be tried in the district of offense and cited SCOTUS precedents of defendants being tried in their own community.
[96] According to one of the group members, the federal officials prosecuting the case, in recognition of the international right of peoples of colonized countries to armed fight for their independence, never asked for the return of the money, and that some of the defendants were given either light or no sentences.