Victor Manuel Gerena has made history by becoming the longest most-wanted individual by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The FBI has pursued Gerena for 29 years—since May 1984—longer than any other person ever put on the Ten Most Wanted List.

On September 12, 1983, he stole $7.2 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut, while working as an armored car driver. At the time, he told a fellow coworker that he pulled the heist because he was tired of working for other people.

Later, the FBI learned Gerena was part a Puerto Rican separatist group called Los Macheteros, which needed money to finance its revolutionary activities.

A year after the robbery, the FBI tracked down and indicted 19 people connected to the heist. But Gerena avoided capture, apparently having been smuggled into Cuba with the help of the government of Fidel Castro, which backed Puerto Rican separatists during the 1980s.

Federal agents suspect Gerena is still in Cuba.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Most Wanted Monday: Victor Manuel Gerena Has Eluded the FBI for 29 Years (by Justin Peters, Slate)

Chapter 1: The Untold Tale of Victor Gerena (by Edmund Mahony, Hartford Courant)

Chapter 8: Two Kinds of Prison (by Edmund Mahony, Hartford Courant)

Two Vacancies on FBI 10 Most Wanted List (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)