Águila Blanca (named after José Maldonado Román and meaning "White Eagle" in English) was the name given by Los Macheteros (a guerrilla group seeking Puerto Rican independence from the United States) to its robbery of a Wells Fargo depot on September 12, 1983, a day coinciding with the birth date of Puerto Rican Nationalist Pedro Albizu Campos.. The robbery took place in West Hartford, Connecticut, and netted more than million (equivalent to more than $million in ). At the time of the robbery, it was the largest cash heist in U.S. history.
The specific cell responsible for it was known as Los Taínos. According to the Macheteros, part of the money was given to the poor communities of Puerto Rico to fund education, food, housing, clothing and toys for children. According to prosecutors, the money was used to finance Los Macheteros. About $80,000 in what was believed to be stolen money was seized by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents during searches in Puerto Rico and Boston. The federal government contends that the group spent about $1 million, moved more than $2 million to Cuba, and hid $4 million in safe deposit boxes, certificates of deposit, savings accounts and farmhouse cellars in Puerto Rico.
The FBI charges for this robbery include obstruction of commerce by robbery and conspiracy, bank robbery, aggravated robbery, theft from interstate shipment, foreign and interstate transportation of stolen money, and conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery.
Strategy and execution Wells Fargo used to store large amounts of money in its depot at Culbro Industrial Park in West Hartford, exploiting a lack of public awareness about it and the city's industrial nature to keep as much as $30 million at the site. The corporation employed individuals at minimum wage, hoping to offset losses caused by an increase in competition. However, this mostly attracted employees with little to no experience. This branch was managed by Jim McKeon, who took the job after only five months of guard duty. 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. McKeon employed 25-year old Víctor Manuel Gerena as his second in command, with both starting their employment with the company with only a month of difference. Among his coworkers, Gerena gained a reputation as a stoic individual, distancing his personal life from most, but his work load earned him one of the vault's keys.
Gerena was sued for the child support of two daughters and lacked any means of transportation when he became engaged to his then girlfriend Liza Soto. On August 29, 1983, he rented a Chevrolet 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. He claimed that it was borrowed from a friend who would be mad if it was damaged by vandals and thieves who frequented the area. Having accomplished this goal, Gerena completed his schedule as usual and finished the work day without incident. He requested a full-size vehicle from the same locale on Friday, September 9, 1983, this time, a 1978 Mercury Marquis, and received a clearance from its manager to keep it throughout the weekend. However, this plan suffered a setback when this vehicle failed and the lessee replaced it with a 1973 Buick LeSabre. 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. After being called, McKeon arrived along another employee, Bob Shewokis, and opened the doors.
Gerena requested, and received, permission to park the LeSabre in bay five of the loading dock, but this prompted a similar request by Girard who parked his in bay four. Both then took a route between West Hartford and Bridgeport, leaving McKeon short-handed of guards. 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. However, McKeon dropped Sheowkis in the return trip and drove the loaded van to the depot by himself. Once there, the manager decided to leave the van loaded parked in the loading dock and waited for the other truck to arrive with the second key of the set required to open the vault. Once Gerena's van arrived, Girard moved his car out of bay four, leaving only Gerena's car and the Wells Fargo vans inside. 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.
The plan suffered another setback when Girard stayed behind instead of leaving as usual after this task was completed, unable to reach his house due to construction. McKeon volunteered to drive him home after counting the second van, and Girard went to sleep meanwhile. While the manager was dealing with the relevant bureaucracy, Gerena told him that his .38 gun was falling off his holster (originally borrowed from Gerena himself) and shortly afterwards used this as a distraction to extract the weapon from the broken holder. 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. Aware of this, the manager asked him not to draw the weapon to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Girard dropped to the floor while McKeon placed his hands behind his back and was handcuffed. Gerena bound both with tape and rope, taped and placed jackets over their heads before injecting both with a solution that was meant to make them feel drowsy but which failed to act after being diluted in two doses instead of the planned single shot. 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. Girard and McKeon noted that he removed the car's backup wheel and made several trips with a cart that he would use to move the money from the vault to it, until $7,017,152 were loaded. Aware that the sedative had failed, he made several checks on the status of his coworkers.
Gerena concluded by loading another gun and a shot gun, then honking the horn of the car to what is believed to have been a signal to another individual and then left the premises. McKeon and Girard struggled to release their bonds afterwards, but by the time that they managed to contact the police, officers Jack Casey, Jack Bannan, and George Mucha were outside the compound waiting for the security measures to be dropped. 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. Meanwhile, Gerena met associates working for the EPB near a motel, handing over the money and his identification. From here, both parties went in different directions, with the other Macheteros heading to Boston and dropping his identification along the way. Gerena headed to New York, and after being provided counterfeit documents traveled south and crossed the border, subsequently traveling to Cuba.
Investigation Eastern states The case was placed in the charge of Lt. John Suchocki and Lt. Duffy, while McKeon and Girard were transported to a hospital. The Hartford police department was alerted to raid Gerena's apartment, where Gerena's girlfriend, Liza Soto, was interviewed and contacted his family. His brother, ex-wife, and an ex-girlfriend were also interrogated to no avail. All of these measures failed, and the police were unable to pinpoint Gerena's location. They lost track of his plausible locations by finding the car, which was later found parked outside a motel, and the knowledge of the locale that leased it. Jim Millan, an FBI agent that worked on bank robberies, was placed in charge of the search for Gerena. Despite receiving media attention at the behest of attorney John Bailey, the recovery of the vehicle failed to provide notable clues. The only piece of evidence found was the revolver and shotgun that Gerena had used during the heist. The possibility that he had boarded a plane in the adjacent Brainard Field was entertained, but soon dropped. Instead the search turned to an area of wilderness that was near the motel, where they speculated that he could have a second getaway vehicle or have received help. The area and nearby buildings failed to provide any evidence after several days of search. 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. Attempts were made to recover the samples taken from McKeon at Hartford Hospital, but they had disappeared. The time lapse between when Gerena injected them and the tests performed on McKeon and Girard, and their limited spectrum, failed to return any known drug. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo offered a $350,000 reward for his capture.
The Boston Herald labeled the event "The Big Sleep Heist". The heist was the largest single-handed in American history and the second largest in total. 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". Gerena's image instantly gathered him popularity by reflecting a hint of the middle class' frustrations with the establishment, with his photo even being exhibited in a store. There was a general perception that the heist had taken "bank money, not people money", which was reinforced by their own frustrations with the corporate economy. Even among the policemen assigned to track him down, he managed to muster a form of respect due to his boldness. A week later, T-shirts with his photo and the slogan "Go For It" were being sold in Hartford.