The action was also known as Operation Dulcineia, the code name given by its chief architect and leader, Portuguese military officer, writer and politician Henrique Galvão, who had been exiled in Caracas, Venezuela since 1959.
The ship's mid-Atlantic service was also viewed as rather out of the ordinary: Lisbon to Madeira, to Tenerife, to La Guaira, to Curaçao, to Havana (later San Juan), and lastly Port Everglades.
Galvão had carefully planned the hijacking in Caracas with the intention of waging war until Salazar was overthrown in Portugal and the overseas territories were subsequently offered independence.
The rebels had boarded the ship in La Guaira (Venezuela) and in Willemstad (Curaçao), disguised as passengers, bringing aboard suitcases that had secret compartments to hide their weapons.
The next day they called at Saint Lucia, then a British possession, to drop off Costa's body and some injured crewmen in a launch; but, speaking only Portuguese, the sailors were unable to successfully communicate what had happened to their ship until after it had left.