Speaker 1: It's been a year since Victor Heraina stole seven million
Speaker 1: dollars disappeared into the night. By this point, the FBI
Speaker 1: has taken over control of the case, leaving the West
Speaker 1: Harford Police Department at a dead end in their investigation.
Speaker 1: Other than Victor being placed on the FBI's infamous Top
Speaker 1: ten most Wanted Fugitives list, public interest in the case fizzled.
Speaker 1: That is, until January six. Three Kings Day, also known
Speaker 1: as Dia de los Reyes or Epiphany, is a religious
Speaker 1: holiday marking the day the Three Wise Men visited Baby Jesus.
Speaker 1: In many Spanish speaking communities, it's a celebration rivaling Christmas. Today,
Speaker 1: in Hartford, there's an annual parade featuring community members dressed
Speaker 1: as King's riding camels down Busy Park Street, much to
Speaker 1: the delight for children and onlookers. There's music, food, toy giveaways,
Speaker 1: even a chance for a photo op with the Magi.
Speaker 1: But if we go back several decades, was more of
Speaker 1: an unofficial celebration, kind of like a block party, And
Speaker 1: on that day, in a very different type of procession
Speaker 1: caught everyone's attention, you know, all of a sudden, somebody
Speaker 1: showed up with this big tractor trailer full of toys
Speaker 1: and started luring into kids on Park Street, which is
Speaker 1: the heart of the Puerto Rican commuter at Hartford. The
Speaker 1: weather was in the brisk thirties, but that didn't stop
Speaker 1: curious community members from gathering around the local moving company's truck,
Speaker 1: parked a few miles away from the parade route used today.
Speaker 1: Over two hours, three men just as the MAGI handed
Speaker 1: out forty dollars worth of toys, food and cash. It
Speaker 1: was an exciting occasion for locals, but to West Harford
Speaker 1: police officers, something just didn't feel right. Fromhow there must
Speaker 1: have been some information passed on to the copts. There
Speaker 1: are somebody took them the number of the trackers. They
Speaker 1: found out about it, and the truck was sees eventually
Speaker 1: and brought to the detective. The worst hapic they used
Speaker 1: the Prince who identified these guys in the truck. And
Speaker 1: then the amazing thing is that we've found it. Surprising
Speaker 1: was when the the money shows up that was traceable money.
Speaker 1: He showed up there because some of the builds were traceable,
Speaker 1: you know, so that I'm thinking myself, my god, there's
Speaker 1: some kind of control of all his money. Where did
Speaker 1: it come from? How how these guys getting this money?
Speaker 1: The answer to that question would breathe new life into
Speaker 1: a stalled investigation. How did thousands of dollars stolen the
Speaker 1: previous year from Wells Fargo end up being used to
Speaker 1: buy a truck full of toys for kids? Now he's
Speaker 1: standing to think of something. It's organized here previously on
Speaker 1: White Eagle. It's like all of a sudden, this guy
Speaker 1: just existed and there wasn't a lot of background, a
Speaker 1: bottom to the head. Each day we put another piece
Speaker 1: of the puzzle together, you know, pieces here, and there
Speaker 1: was not the fit. Everybody figured that Victor herain it
Speaker 1: was the inside man, and everybody's waiting for his body
Speaker 1: to pop up someplace. My name is zem William Phelps.
Speaker 1: I'm an investigative journalist and author of more than forty
Speaker 1: true crime books. What you were about to hear is
Speaker 1: the true story of a heist, one that funded an
Speaker 1: international independence movement and sparked an investigation spanning nearly four decades.
Speaker 1: This is White Eagle. Every story has its origin. This
Speaker 1: one is no different. Investigators looking to understand how and
Speaker 1: why Victor Harrain has stole seven million dollars in cash
Speaker 1: needed to first consider his connection to Puerto Rico. There
Speaker 1: was a time and maybe the seventies and at least
Speaker 1: end of the early eighties, when I think they were
Speaker 1: more Puerto Rican people in Hartford on a per capita basis,
Speaker 1: and we were any place Celts except for Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: It was a very, very big influential immigrant group, immigrants
Speaker 1: that the United States citizens for the people from the
Speaker 1: island looking at Hartford were a big part of the
Speaker 1: stake's makeup. That said Mahoney, the Hartford current reporter who
Speaker 1: spoke in the last episode. He caught himself during our discussion,
Speaker 1: but people often forget that Puerto Ricans are in fact
Speaker 1: U S citizens, maybe because they lacked the right to
Speaker 1: do basic things such as vote in a presidential election.
Speaker 1: But more on that later. For now, it's important to
Speaker 1: understand that Hartford is home to one of the largest
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican communities in the United States. More than forty
Speaker 1: of the city's population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, and
Speaker 1: according to some estimates, one out of every three Harford
Speaker 1: residents is of Puerto Rican descent. It's an important group,
Speaker 1: and it was an important group then I mean candidates
Speaker 1: for office in Puerto Rico would occasionally campaigned in Hartford,
Speaker 1: the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and kind of like the
Speaker 1: quasi embassy in Hartford. There were so many people in Hartford,
Speaker 1: did the government of the commonwealth headed office to look
Speaker 1: after them. Hartford had reciprocity agreements with Puerto Rico. Puerto
Speaker 1: Rico would send groups of teachers from university students who
Speaker 1: are studying to become teachers to work in Harvard, either
Speaker 1: as trainees or to work at Hartford, which kind of
Speaker 1: made sense because so many kids in the school system
Speaker 1: or from Puerto Rico. Large groups of Puerto Ricans first
Speaker 1: started coming to Connecticut after World War Two, looking for
Speaker 1: seasonal work on one of the countless tobacco farms along
Speaker 1: sections of the Connecticut River. Many stayed and built the
Speaker 1: vibrant community in Hartford in parts of West Harford. Park Street,
Speaker 1: which runs east to west along the city's south end,
Speaker 1: is the community's main artery. If you're dropped off on
Speaker 1: Park Street, um, you're definitely going to get the food,
Speaker 1: You're going to get the language, and you're gonna get
Speaker 1: the vibe. Joel Cruz is a lifelong Hartford resident and
Speaker 1: senior director of the city's Institute for the Hispanic Family,
Speaker 1: which is part of Catholic Charities and co sponsors the
Speaker 1: Three Kings they parade every year. You'll see people you
Speaker 1: know talking outside and connecting. The embracement you know, for
Speaker 1: us is very important. The close proximity of like the
Speaker 1: hugs and the kisses, and Joel describes Harford's Puerto Rican
Speaker 1: community as extremely tightening. It had to be, he says,
Speaker 1: because for decades there was little to no public support
Speaker 1: for Spanish speakers in the city. That's part of the
Speaker 1: reason the Institute for the Hispanic Family grew into what
Speaker 1: it is today. It provides opportunities for support and connection,
Speaker 1: help that wasn't made available for people like Joel's grandfather
Speaker 1: who left Puerto Rico in the fifties and came to
Speaker 1: Hartford seeking opportunity. I think that's the sense of people
Speaker 1: that came to Hartford and settled in Hartford, specifically from
Speaker 1: the Puerto Rican community. It's more like I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to survive, and if you ask me, I don't agree.
Speaker 1: I'm not happy, but I'm just trying to survive for
Speaker 1: folks who like my dad who saw the racism, who
Speaker 1: saw the the abuse, who saw all the inequalities, especially
Speaker 1: like you know, US versus Puerto Rico. He has his
Speaker 1: reservations about, like how Puerto Rico has been treated like
Speaker 1: a colony, and I see it, like when I go
Speaker 1: to Puerto Rico, I can see it's treated like a
Speaker 1: colony more than part of the U s or with
Speaker 1: fair treatment. It's a world Victor Harana would have known well.
Speaker 1: His mother, Gloria, was born in Puerto Rico and migrated
Speaker 1: to the US, settling first in the Bronx and later Hartford,
Speaker 1: where she raised Victor and his four siblings. Like Joel,
Speaker 1: Gloria worked at the Institute for the Hispanic Family. She
Speaker 1: was one of the region's first bilingual social workers and
Speaker 1: spent forty five years with the organization, working primarily with
Speaker 1: young kids. Joel says everyone called her La Madrina, which
Speaker 1: translates to the godmother. He says they'd often eat lunch together,
Speaker 1: and he loved hearing her stories about sports, Hartford and
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico. She was a big time Giants fan, and
Speaker 1: so I'm a Patriots fan, and so we will always
Speaker 1: talk about that. We will go back and forth They
Speaker 1: were just fun conversations. We will talk about the community.
Speaker 1: We will talk about like the riots and Hartford and
Speaker 1: how it was sad that the US would continue to
Speaker 1: treat Puerto Rico um like a colony when we have
Speaker 1: so much to bring. You know, she will talk about
Speaker 1: her dislike of that. She she was very vocal about
Speaker 1: making sure the younger generation understood we must stand up
Speaker 1: for our community. There was one unspoken rule when it
Speaker 1: came to talking with Gloria never ever mentioned her son
Speaker 1: Victor or the Wells Fargo heist. We always knew not
Speaker 1: to bring up Victor because you know, I mean, imagine
Speaker 1: a mother regardless so what happened, She's still a mother,
Speaker 1: and um we always knew we respect to her enough
Speaker 1: not even to bring it up. And for good reason.
Speaker 1: Gloria is a controversial figure in this story. A number
Speaker 1: of people I spoke with said they thought she knew
Speaker 1: about Victor's plan to rob the Wells Fargo depot. A
Speaker 1: few even thought she put him up to it, though
Speaker 1: I should know I have never found any evidence to
Speaker 1: support that theory. Getting in touch with Victor's mother has
Speaker 1: been nearly impossible. During this investigation, I was told by
Speaker 1: a very close source. She did not want to be
Speaker 1: interviewed by me. I respected that, and it's no surprise.
Speaker 1: In the years after the heist, she refused to cooperate
Speaker 1: with grand Juries looking into Victor's disappearance, which fueled speculation
Speaker 1: that she had something to hide. But any hope of
Speaker 1: making last attempt was dash when Joel Cruz revealed something
Speaker 1: during our interview an amazing maybe she actually passed away
Speaker 1: last week. Gloria Harraina died on February. She was eight four. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm dressing black because I'm actually going to go to
Speaker 1: her funeral. And um, every time we met in the
Speaker 1: lunch room, before I got up and I was leaving,
Speaker 1: she will always tell me, don't forget your culture, don't
Speaker 1: forget your background. She was just a very instrumental person,
Speaker 1: very wise, kind, but she you know, she had this
Speaker 1: fighting spirit, even at her age. She had this fighting
Speaker 1: spirit in her of always making sure that we stood
Speaker 1: up for our rights. Gloria Horana was a staunch supporter
Speaker 1: of Puerto Rican independence, regularly attending rallies and protests in
Speaker 1: and around Hartford. She was also a member of the
Speaker 1: Hartford chapter of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, a pro
Speaker 1: independence group. She said, died in the role independent Easter.
Speaker 1: That's her politics and that's what she lives for. I mean,
Speaker 1: whenever there's a protest, you know, involving some kind of
Speaker 1: independence issue, she's always there. Victor was a complicated figure
Speaker 1: as well. Friends and co workers described him as a loner,
Speaker 1: not nearly as active in the community or as vocal
Speaker 1: about politics as his mother. But the heist made Victor
Speaker 1: something of a folk hero overnight. The stories that we
Speaker 1: were told, you know, talked about him as a very
Speaker 1: respectable man and just frustrated with systems and the racism
Speaker 1: that we were experiencing. I think even in the community
Speaker 1: people will talk about it from a perspective of like, look,
Speaker 1: he took some of that and he gave out toys,
Speaker 1: and you know, he did it out of frustration. I've
Speaker 1: never heard throughout the stories of anyone actually judging him
Speaker 1: in a negative way. Plus, Victor wasn't violent, not really.
Speaker 1: That's actually something former Starford police officer Jack Casey pointed
Speaker 1: out during one of our initial conversations. You see, Victor
Speaker 1: could have seriously hurt those security guards, even killed them,
Speaker 1: but he didn't. And I think that's why throughout Hartford
Speaker 1: he became kind of almost like a robin Hood character,
Speaker 1: where they'd have his picture up in some of the
Speaker 1: little bodegas and the stores on Park Street and people
Speaker 1: looked at um. And then when they came back on
Speaker 1: Three Kings Day and they were passing out the money
Speaker 1: and the food or whatever. So they got a lot
Speaker 1: of goodwill in the community from it. Victor didn't appear
Speaker 1: at the Three Kings Day parade, but the money he
Speaker 1: stole more than a year earlier did. West Harford police
Speaker 1: were able to confirm that serial numbers on the banded
Speaker 1: bills matched those stolen from the Wells Fargo depot. But
Speaker 1: what many weren't aware of at the time was that
Speaker 1: over in Puerto Rico, the FBI had already spent months
Speaker 1: making huge investigative strides in the case. The question is,
Speaker 1: you know, why why did they pick hard for Why
Speaker 1: was this nobody from nowhere Bill? You know, Victor Herrina
Speaker 1: the inside man. Yeah, there's only one explanation. Before the
Speaker 1: robin Hood like stunt on Three Kings Day. The last
Speaker 1: anyone heard from Victor Haraina was in the form of
Speaker 1: three handwritten postcards sent to various news outlets in which
Speaker 1: he vowed to explain why he robbed the Wells Fargo depot,
Speaker 1: while also teasing a major announcement about the missing money.
Speaker 1: About a month later, Victor delivered on his promise. A
Speaker 1: typewritten letter was sent to the San Juan offices of
Speaker 1: United Press International in Puerto Rico. This time, however, Victor
Speaker 1: was not the author. The letter came from an insurgency
Speaker 1: group claiming responsibility for the Wells Fargo robbery. In it,
Speaker 1: they claimed they spent a year and a half planning
Speaker 1: every stage of the heist and had waited until the
Speaker 1: seven million dollars was out of the country and in
Speaker 1: a state of quote maximum security before going public. It's
Speaker 1: a communicate, but reads more like a manifesto. The group's
Speaker 1: leadership said the money was being used to fund its
Speaker 1: revolutionary movement. Quote in the same manner in which we
Speaker 1: have sees seven million dollars from the very bowels of
Speaker 1: American imperialism, the organized force of the Puerto Rican people
Speaker 1: will know how in its own time to seize the
Speaker 1: liberty which will allow us to choose our destiny as
Speaker 1: a people. End quote. It goes on to read in part.
Speaker 1: We want to report that Comrade Harrena is in a
Speaker 1: perfect state of health and has joined the struggle which
Speaker 1: our people carry out to obtain our liberation. That was
Speaker 1: the Maga Taros, the mas teros, who are upset that
Speaker 1: they weren't getting the attention that they thought they deserved
Speaker 1: for this patriotic express presation. They wanted to get some
Speaker 1: publicity for it, and the police weren't helping him because
Speaker 1: the police weren't linking him to the crime, so they
Speaker 1: had to take some steps on their own. Los MACHOs,
Speaker 1: formerly known as the Boricua Popular Army, are a revolutionary
Speaker 1: nationalist group fighting since nineteen seventy six for Puerto Rico's
Speaker 1: independence from the United States. Depending on who you ask,
Speaker 1: Los mace Tero's translates to either the machete wielders or
Speaker 1: the cane cutters, a reference to Puerto Ricans who harvested
Speaker 1: sugarcane under Spanish and later American sugar monopolies, some of
Speaker 1: whom used their tools as weapons in the Spanish American War.
Speaker 1: Half of the people I spoke with described them as
Speaker 1: ter arrests, the other half said they were a pro
Speaker 1: independence group. We can say that they were radical in
Speaker 1: the sense of the means that they were using to
Speaker 1: fight for or struggle for independence. Dr Jose A. Tellis
Speaker 1: is a professor at the University of Illinois or ban
Speaker 1: As Champagne. My areas of research as mainly Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: I studied the legal and political relationship between Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: and the US, with special emphasis and colonialism and legal
Speaker 1: mobilizations and pro independence movement. He's also from Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: and grew up hearing stories about Los mach Terros exploits.
Speaker 1: There were a small group and they were described in
Speaker 1: the media as terrorist criminal. The fact that Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: still being a colony kind of chose you that they
Speaker 1: didn't get the supper or that they wanted right and
Speaker 1: that this society were not behind these the type of actions.
Speaker 1: It's important to bear in mind that they were part
Speaker 1: of historical context, right. That was what prow independence, Antiicolonian
Speaker 1: movement we're doing in there's seventies and eighties everywhere, not
Speaker 1: only Puerto Rico, pot Ireland, the Basque Country, Catalunia and elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Experts say that Macha Terros are not a major player today,
Speaker 1: but in the late seventies and early eighties. The group
Speaker 1: was engaged in armed conflict with the US government, with
Speaker 1: cells in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and barrios across the continental
Speaker 1: United States, including Hartford, Connecticut. A lot of Puerto Ricans
Speaker 1: that joined prow independence movement in the seventies sixties seventies
Speaker 1: either were first generation Puerto Rican Puerto Ricans who migrated
Speaker 1: with the parents that grew up facing discrimination, racism, poverty,
Speaker 1: So it was not hard seeing that Puerto Rican would
Speaker 1: join uh struggle that advocated for independence from Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: social justice or economic justice, and also some anti racism,
Speaker 1: anti oppression at large. Can you tell me about yourself,
Speaker 1: Robert s Hibe, But we're in October thirty one, nineteen
Speaker 1: seven Halloween birth He had it better than that. Bob
Speaker 1: Hyble as a former FBI agent and Deputy chief of
Speaker 1: the Bureau's counter Terrorism Division. He's been stationed all over
Speaker 1: but spent the early part of his career in San Juan,
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico work in the island's separatist movements. We were
Speaker 1: having a series of bombings and I was fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to have the case on the key player Philiberto Terrios.
Speaker 1: Bob would go on to study and investigate Philiberto Ojeda
Speaker 1: Rios's life, which included the founding of Mirra, a pro
Speaker 1: independence group in the sixties, followed by Los Macha Terros
Speaker 1: and its sister organization, the f a l N in
Speaker 1: the mid seventies. Here's reporter at mahoney. There were two
Speaker 1: wings of the nationalist movement. I mean there was the
Speaker 1: f a l N, which was in charge of the
Speaker 1: quote unquote activities on the mainland, and there were the
Speaker 1: Macha Terris who were involved supposedly in activities. The FA
Speaker 1: l N was doing his damage in Chicago and New York.
Speaker 1: All right, they were blown up France's tavern, They're blown up,
Speaker 1: you know, the mobile oil building. They're blown up, things
Speaker 1: like that. Over the course of nearly a decade, both
Speaker 1: Los Macha Terros and the f a l N claim
Speaker 1: responsibility for over one attacks in the continental United States
Speaker 1: and Puerto Rico, including the murder of a police officer,
Speaker 1: the bombing of eleven unmanned aircrafts on a National Guard airfield,
Speaker 1: and an attack on a Navy bus which left three
Speaker 1: people dead and eight sailors wounded. Back then, things were
Speaker 1: getting blown up quite a bit too because of the
Speaker 1: Machan terrorist In late October, just six weeks after the
Speaker 1: Wells Fargo heighst the group used the shoulder launched rocket
Speaker 1: to strike a federal building in Puerto Rico. They called
Speaker 1: a laws rocket l a WUS Laws and somebody you know,
Speaker 1: initiated a missile attack on the federal building in a
Speaker 1: place called at del Rey, which is the commercial center
Speaker 1: of San Juan. They were aiming for the FBI officers
Speaker 1: and they actually hit, you know, for the part of agriculture.
Speaker 1: No one was killed, but the harget was clear. One
Speaker 1: year firing rockets into buildings in the middle of downtown
Speaker 1: San Juan, chances are, you know, you're taking a risk
Speaker 1: of hurting somebody. You know this that law missile it
Speaker 1: was fired again, Bobbe. They recovered the two from that
Speaker 1: law missile. It was part of a lot that was
Speaker 1: left in Vietnam and the Vietnamese furnished it to the
Speaker 1: Cubans and they given furnished it the mar barrels. When
Speaker 1: they fired the law missile at the FBI building and missed,
Speaker 1: they discovered the car that was used and the search
Speaker 1: of the car was so thorough that they recovered a
Speaker 1: traffic ticket. So what they did is they identified where
Speaker 1: the car had been parked from the ticket was issued.
Speaker 1: They set up with surveillance and took some pictures, and
Speaker 1: I got a call from the supervisor and saying on
Speaker 1: it said, Bob, can you come down to Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: I want you to look at some pictures. Because I
Speaker 1: was one of the only two FBI agents that everything
Speaker 1: Philip Bertho in person, and uh, sure enough, it was
Speaker 1: fully better to the photographs. So from then on they
Speaker 1: were able to identify where he was living in The
Speaker 1: whole investigative approach to this changed and it became a
Speaker 1: major case. From that point on, m the FBI began
Speaker 1: a detailed surveillance of Philip Berto Ojeda Rios, tracking the
Speaker 1: comings and goings of anyone associated with los Ma Terosh.
Speaker 1: Over the next six months, the bureau collected enough evidence
Speaker 1: to obtain a search warrant for one of the group's
Speaker 1: safe houses. Inside they found a treasure trove of documents.
Speaker 1: To the surveillance, they were able to do microphones and
Speaker 1: wire taps, and because they had a microphone in Philip
Speaker 1: Bertor's car, it was in those wire tapped conversations that
Speaker 1: investigators first heard chatter of the missing seven million dollars.
Speaker 1: Here's reporter Ed Mahoney again. No one ever conceived, No
Speaker 1: one law enforcement had any clue or even thought or
Speaker 1: imagine you know that a group of radical independent east
Speaker 1: is at an island in the Caribbean. We're knocking off
Speaker 1: armored cars in Hartford, Connecticut. It's just never occurred to anybody,
Speaker 1: and there's really no reason why it should have occurred anybody.
Speaker 1: The timelines in this case are actively confusing. The discovery
Speaker 1: made by the FBI happened before Victor Herrina and the
Speaker 1: Macha Terros took credit for Wells Fargo. But it's important
Speaker 1: to remember that the FBI's field office in Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: was investigating a rocket attack in San Juan, not a
Speaker 1: robbery in West Harford. They were focused on their own investigation.
Speaker 1: The discovery of the stolen money was a surprise. The
Speaker 1: FBI in Connecticut never woke up to this thing, you know.
Speaker 1: It was the FBI in Puerto Rico it put all together,
Speaker 1: and it was almost by accident that they did. From there,
Speaker 1: the bureau began piecing together Victor Herrina's connection to Los
Speaker 1: macha Ros. For one, they learned how long Victor had
Speaker 1: prepared for the operation, where he fled after the robbery,
Speaker 1: and who else was involved. But one of the biggest
Speaker 1: questions in this case has always and did Victor just
Speaker 1: happen to start working at Wells Fargo and Los Macha
Speaker 1: Terros saw an opportunity to recruit him? Or was he
Speaker 1: groomed by the group to apply for the job. Do
Speaker 1: you know how they recruited Victor Harena? I think that
Speaker 1: it was through his mother. Through his mother, I think,
Speaker 1: how does a guy like that though drive away with
Speaker 1: thirt hundred pounds of money and then disappear. It was
Speaker 1: well prepared. One thing about Ajit, he was a tremendous planner.
Speaker 1: Everything Philiberto Oheda Rios did was intentional. Take the date
Speaker 1: of the heist as an example to a lot of folks.
Speaker 1: September twelve is just another day to Puerto Ricans. It's
Speaker 1: the birthday of Pedro L. Bzoo Campos, a leader in
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican's independence movement, a man seen to this day
Speaker 1: as a national hero and patriot. I spoke to a
Speaker 1: former member of Los Machateros. He wouldn't confirm how the
Speaker 1: group came into contact with Victor, only that a quote
Speaker 1: friend helped identify the opportunity at Wells Fargo and made
Speaker 1: the introduction. It's worth pointing out here that Victor started
Speaker 1: his job at Wells Fargo in May two, just shy
Speaker 1: of a year and a half before the heist. In
Speaker 1: the communic at which the macha Ros take credit for
Speaker 1: the robbery, it's noted that the planning took a year
Speaker 1: and a half to fully execute. That former Macheterro member
Speaker 1: told me that at the time, Victor was angry about
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico's political status and eager to do something about it.
Speaker 1: He felt the US treated the island like a colony,
Speaker 1: using it for military exercises, stripping it of its natural resources,
Speaker 1: and depriving residents of basic opportunities. Like many Puerto Ricans
Speaker 1: in the early eighties, Victor was also reeling from a
Speaker 1: shocking act of police violence a few years earlier, the
Speaker 1: seroh Mara Villa murders in eight wherein two pro independence
Speaker 1: activists were ambushed and killed by police in Ponce, Puerto
Speaker 1: Rico after being set up by an undercover agent It
Speaker 1: was hugely controversial, and government investigations into the killings in
Speaker 1: an attempted cover up we're still going on at the
Speaker 1: time of the heist. Here's Jose Attila's again. Every time
Speaker 1: that they stayed carry out a act of this type
Speaker 1: of violence or carry out of some sort of assassination,
Speaker 1: pro independence movement will react, and Cerro Mario was especially radicalizing.
Speaker 1: For many young people that saw this grows some auction
Speaker 1: us pulling of no return. So I cool reminded that
Speaker 1: or that and understood that this was kind of too much.
Speaker 1: From all of it, a picture pulls into focus. A smart,
Speaker 1: highly capable young man, deeply connected to his Puerto Rican roots,
Speaker 1: takes a dead end job while secretly training for a
Speaker 1: meticulously planned robbery. But it wasn't just some gas station
Speaker 1: hold up or common burgle. This was a military operation,
Speaker 1: a criminal enterprise that involved elaborate disguises and a daring
Speaker 1: international escape, an organized heist with the code name White Eagle.
Speaker 1: And those security guards who suspected Victor had some help
Speaker 1: that night, well they were right. What nobody knew then
Speaker 1: and would not know for decade to come, is that
Speaker 1: there was at least one other man a top Los
Speaker 1: MACHOs operative waiting around the back of the Wells Fargo
Speaker 1: building for Victor on the night of the robbery. You see,
Speaker 1: Victor knew this, Victor planned for this, Victor trained for this,
Speaker 1: and within hours of loading all that money into a
Speaker 1: rented buick, Victor Heraina had successfully completed the first step
Speaker 1: in the macha ter plan. The second step, well, that
Speaker 1: would involve the twenty five year old testing his look
Speaker 1: at attempting to smuggle millions and stolen cash across the
Speaker 1: US border. Next time, I'm White Eagle, So he practiced
Speaker 1: grabbing me by the night and taking right out to
Speaker 1: the ground. We hear from the man who made it happen.
Speaker 1: White Eagle has written and executive produced by me Em
Speaker 1: William Phelps and I Heart executive producer Christina Everett. Additional
Speaker 1: writing by our supervising producer Julia Weaver. Our associate producer
Speaker 1: and script supervisor is Darby Masters, Audio editing and mixing
Speaker 1: by a Bouzafar and Christian Bowman. Our series theme forms
Speaker 1: Regal or Grant is written by Aaron Kaufman and special
Speaker 1: thanks to Arlene Santana and will Pearson at I Heart radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio Apple Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.