All language subtitles for FBI True Season - 5 episode 3

- A Canadian businessman
living in Puerto Rico

had gone out to dinner
with his wife in Old San Juan.

They were attacked, and he
was stabbed several times,

and he bleeds out
on the street.

- He was worth
about 24 million.

- She was a beauty pageant
contestant in Puerto Rico.

Her purse was there.
His wallet was there.

There was no attempt
to grab anything of value.

It was very hard
to establish a motive.

- The only physical evidence
is the knife.

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- The victim's father, some of
the things that he was seeing

was not adding up, and so

he actually went to the FBI.

- Upon further interviews,
we start corroborating

this being a conspiracy.

"I was offered $3 million,
and they never paid me."

- So as
the investigation unfolds

and you go to speak with
the wife,

where do you find her?
- She's gone.

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- In the FBI,
we make a lot of headlines.

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Drug busts, mob stings,

terrorist takedowns.

- Get down! Get down!

- We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.
- Freeze!

- FBI.
- FBI!

- Action!

- But they don't know
the half of it.

What really goes down,
we save that for each other

when we're talking
agent-to-agent.

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This is "FBI True."

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- On September 22, 2005,

Adam Anhang had gone out
to dinner with his wife,

Aurea V�zquez-Rijos.

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They went to a really nice,
trendy restaurant

in Old San Juan.

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They go to dinner,
and after dinner,

they're walking back.

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And all of a sudden,
Adam is--

and Aurea are attacked.

Adam is stabbed several times,

and then he was hit
over the head

with a cobblestone
from the street there.

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And he essentially
bleeds out on the street.

- Carlos Cases was one
of the FBI's top experts

in Latin American crime.

Over a 27-year career,

he led investigations
into drugs,

gangs, public corruption,
and terrorism.

- Adam's last words were,
"Run, baby, run."

- So, basically,
they leave the restaurant,

they're walking down
the street,

and an individual attacks them.
- Correct.

- Kristy Kottis is
a 24-year veteran of the FBI.

She worked gangs,
crimes against children,

as well as human
and drug trafficking.

- What about the wife?
What are her injuries?

- She was hit once or twice.

But she was taken
to the hospital.

She ended up staying at the
hospital for two whole weeks.

- Who was Adam Anhang?

- Adam was
a Canadian businessman

living in Puerto Rico.

- So Adam was in real estate,

and he was looking
to build up Puerto Rico.

He was worth about
approximately 24 million.

- Significant.
- Yes, a lot of money.

- Grettel Chavarria started
her career as a detective

with the Miami-Dade
Police Department

before joining the FBI,
where she has investigated

violent crime, murder,
and crimes against children.

- Adam was someone who was
really looking to open up

opportunities for the island.

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Aurea was a person
that was high in the media

at that time, and it grabbed
a lot of attention.

- Aurea, at one time,
was a beauty pageant contestant

in Puerto Rico,
a pageant called Miss Petite

because she was small
in stature,

and so she was
a contestant in that pageant.

The murder was a real big deal
because it happened

in Old San Juan,
which is considered by many

to be not only the crown jewel
of Puerto Rico,

but also the Caribbean.

That's where
the major cruise ships

dock in Puerto Rico.

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Thousands of tourists
flock to Old San Juan

every year
to do their shopping

and to do their sightseeing
and do what tourists do.

The type of crime
that occurs there

is usually your, you know,
pickpockets

and that kind of stuff.

You rarely see
that kind of violent crime

in that particular area.

Police in Puerto Rico
started investigating.

It was very hard
to establish a motive

because nothing was taken.

Adam was stabbed,
Aurea was hit by the attacker,

and then he fled.

Her purse was there.
Adam's wallet was there.

There was no attempt
to grab anything of value.

- Yeah, I think it presented
straight up at the time

a random act of violence.

- Devin Kowalski
spent five years with the CIA

before joining the FBI
in 2010.

He has led investigations
into fraud, violent crime,

and sexual exploitation.

- Unsolved homicide
in the middle of Old San Juan.

So, you know,
one event like that

could send things south
in a hurry.

- There was a lot of pressure
on the police in Puerto Rico

and the Puerto Rico
Department of Justice

to solve this homicide.

- Eyewitnesses described
the killer as a tall man

who fled the scene
toward La Perla,

a nearby
high-crime neighborhood.

One witness, a lawyer,

picks out a suspect
from a photo lineup.

- The suspect's name
was Jonathan Rom�n Rivera.

He had some connection
to the Pink Skirt,

which was a restaurant
that was owned by Adam

and his wife at the time.

In fact, police encounter
Rom�n at the restaurant.

He claims he was asleep
at his home in La Perla

at the time of the murder,

but there's no one
who can back up his alibi.

- At the Pink Skirt,
they start asking

Jon Rom�n questions about

his involvement
in the homicide.

They see somebody who generally
meets the description

that's being evasive.
He's making denials.

He doesn't feel comfortable.
He wants to leave.

There's an attorney there.

And the attorney says,

"Hey, there's really
not much you can do here,

just cooperate."

And the police of Puerto Rico
take him into custody.

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- So he's under arrest.

He goes to trial.

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- There's witnesses at trial,
government witnesses,

that are trying to tell
the prosecution like, that is--

the person in the courtroom
is not the person that I saw,

that a tall,
relatively thin-build man

stabs the subject.

- The witness description
of the assailant

is "tall, thin guy."
Is Rom�n tall, thin?

- No.
- No.

- What's he look like?
- He's heavier-set.

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- So the chatter was that
the police had the wrong guy.

- But the prosecution
leans on the credibility

of the lawyer
who first identified Rom�n

as the killer.

Rom�n is found guilty
and sentenced

to 105 years in prison.

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- So the case is closed.
- Not really.

The victim's father,
Abraham Anhang...

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He was concerned
that some of the things

that he was seeing
with regards to the case

and the way it was investigated
was not adding up,

and so he actually went
to the FBI

and met with the special agent
in charge

of the San Juan office
and basically

told him about his concerns.

- How often has that happened
in anybody's career here,

where a victim's father
is like, "You know,

the guy in jail,
he may not be it?"

- Not too often.

He was suspicious
of many things

that he found out
after Adam's murder.

Adam was very close
to his mom and dad.

So one of the things
that Abe found out

was that Aurea had told Adam
that she was pregnant,

which then caused Adam
to make the decision

to marry her without
really thinking it through.

You know, he wanted
to do the right thing.

He wanted to be
a father to the baby.

And they didn't find out

that he had gotten married
until after the fact.

Then,
when it came to the murder,

for whatever reason,
Aurea hadn't cooperated fully

with the investigation.

So Adam's father goes
into Jonathan Rom�n's

neighborhood, La Perla.

He meets with
some people connected

to the criminal
or gang element there,

asking about Adam's murder.

- Another name comes out,
Alex Pab�n Col�n.

- They call him "El Loco,"
or "The Crazy One."

That's his street name.

- Abe and his colleagues
identified

Alex Pab�n Col�n
as the real person

that killed Adam.

- And so as we receive
this information,

the FBI opens up
an investigation.

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- And then we go
and we find Alex,

and we interview him,
and he confesses to the crime.

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- Wait, wait.
I got to stop you.

So you're interviewing
the suspect,

and during the interview,
he confesses that,

yes, I did this brutal murder?

- Yeah, he does.

And he confesses to this
being a conspiracy.

He had previously been
in contact

with Aurea
and her family members,

and that Aurea
was gonna pay him $3 million.

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"I was offered $3 million,
and they never paid me.

And I've sent letters."

- So he actually
writes them letters?

- Yeah, he does.

- So as you're hearing
this information,

what strikes you first, Carlos?

- We knew that
it was very likely

that there was an innocent man
in jail.

We let the local authorities
know what we had uncovered,

and they dug in their heels,

and they said that
Jonathan Rom�n was the killer

and that as far
as they were concerned,

it was a closed case.

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We knew that
we had to make it right.

It was a moral obligation
to make it right.

So the U.S. attorney
presents our new evidence

in a federal court,
and after eight months

in prison,
Rom�n is released.

Very gratifying,
very rewarding,

the fact that we were able
to make this right

and for him to be able
to regain his freedom

after he was looking
at life in jail...

- I mean, think about it.

- It doesn't get
any better than that.

And that's when the FBI
then went full steam ahead

with the murder-for-hire
investigation.

Alex Pab�n is indicted.

- So now we've got
the right guy in custody.

And we've also indicted
Aurea V�zquez.

- So as
the investigation unfolds

and you go to speak with Aurea,
where do you find her?

- She's gone.

- What do you mean,
she's gone?

- Adam was attacked,
stabbed several times.

He bleeds out on the street.

Alex Pab�n is indicted.

And Aurea was indicted.

She was wanted
for murder in Puerto Rico.

But she's gone.
She moved to Italy.

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So we're working with our

International
Operations Division,

keeping tabs on her.
- Right.

- But at the same time,
Abraham, the victim's father,

is doing the same thing
with his private investigators

that he had hired to be able
to track her as well.

- What's happening in Italy?

- We find out
that she changes her name

from V�zquez-Rijos to Domenici.

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She creates
this whole profile of being

this Jewish widow
and a whole fake life

of who she was.

- Italy will not
extradite someone

that's charged with a
death penalty eligible offense.

And the murder-for-hire
that she was charged with

is a death penalty
eligible offense.

- Aurea V�zquez
goes one step further,

seducing a local
and giving birth to twins.

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- Now she has
an Italian husband

and two Italian children.

We couldn't get her out because
the Italian Constitution

forbids the extradition of the
parents of Italian nationals.

- So we're working
the fugitive piece.

We're also working
the investigative piece

back in San Juan.

About eight years had gone by.

The only physical evidence,
really,

is the knife that we have.

- Alex Pab�n pleads guilty.

He's in jail
awaiting sentencing.

- We all came together
and said,

"You know, we need to
reconstruct that relationship."

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- Back in March of 2005,
Aurea coaxes Adam

to get married
before she has a kid.

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- Aurea took over
his entire life

and his finances.

- She buys vehicles,
moves her family

into the house.

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He ends up buying her
a restaurant,

the Pink Skirt.

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- So he just becomes,
like, sort of

an outsider in her life

versus them
having a relationship.

- Absolutely.

- And he found out that
she wasn't pregnant either.

- Oh.
Well, that's something.

- It was a lie.
It was a lie.

She concocted a lie
that she was pregnant

to get Anhang to marry her.

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But that's not the only lie
in the marriage.

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- What do you mean by that?

- So she's stepping out,
doing her thing.

- She's having an affair.
I mean--

- Oh, a full-blown affair?
- Yeah, multiple.

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Each person we would talk to,
like, people in the community

that knew Aurea before Adam,
would be like, "Holy cow,

this is pretty obvious."
- She was a liar.

She always tried to manipulate
everyone in her life.

- They went
to marriage counseling.

Over each session,
it became clear

that he wanted a divorce.
- He had buyer's remorse.

He went back to the store
to return it,

and she wasn't having
any of it.

So on December 21, 2005,

Adam files for divorce.

- The prenuptial agreement
generally called for

if they were divorced,
she would get a couple of

hundred thousand dollars
of alimony.

But if Adam died,
she would be paid out

a lot more money, several,
several million dollars.

- And that's where she comes up
with this wild idea

that she was
gonna have him killed.

- Alex Pab�n Col�n
talks about Jos� Ferrer,

Aurea's sister's boyfriend.

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They met in Old San Juan
a couple of days

before the crime,

and Alex was walked through
what exactly

that they wanted him to do.

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- The next morning,
Aurea reaches out

to Adam,
begging him to discuss

the divorce over dinner.

- So she had this sense
of urgency to sit with him,

but it came tied with the fact
that she already had a plan.

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- So after dinner
at the Dragonfly,

they stop by the Pink Skirt

down the block
to have a drink.

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- While they're there,
Jos� Ferrer Sosa

calls Alex Pab�n,
who gets ready to attack.

- They went to go pick up
their car to drive home,

but on the way, at the corner
of La Luna and San Justo,

is where Adam was attacked.

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- FBI investigators now
understand who killed Adam,

how they did it, and why.

But they want to know
how Jonathan Rom�n ended up

taking the fall
for the murder.

- A couple of weeks
after the murder,

Jos� Ferrer Sosa,
Aurea's sister's boyfriend,

starts showing
some interest in Jonathan,

summoning him
to the Pink Skirt.

They'd walk
into the Pink Skirt,

and the Police of Puerto Rico
case detective is there.

We have an attorney
somehow there that's paid for

by Aurea and her family.
- He was a patsy.

- With a full understanding
of the conspiracy,

agents step up their efforts
to capture Aurea,

who's still in Italy,
now working

as an international
tour guide.

- We know that she's traveling
all over the place.

She would go to a country
as a tour guide

for one or two days.

We had strong information

that she was in a particular
location in Gibraltar.

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We started to get
our ducks in a row

to have the approvals in place

for a provisional
arrest warrant.

That would have given
the Gibraltar police

the authority to go grab her.

But those approvals
didn't come into

play until after
she'd left the country.

So it was a near miss,
wildly frustrating.

After Gibraltar, what was clear
was racing against the clock

when she's bouncing
around the country

every other day,
that isn't a good solution.

So we develop an informant
who has access to her,

and we start communicating
with her about a future trip.

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- Aurea's company specializes
in tours for Jewish Americans,

so the agents invent
just such a trip

to a country which would
extradite her to the U.S.

- It was a lure
to get her to Spain.

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- When we take her
into custody,

we want to do it simultaneous
to arresting other associates

back in Puerto Rico,
other family members

and associates that are
involved in this conspiracy.

And I think
as we're going through

this operational
planning phase,

I was kind of
tough to work with.

I'll be honest with you.

Like, I wanted
to get stuff done,

and I wanted it done yesterday.

The boss only gives us
a 50/50 chance

of it being successful.

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- Aurea arrives in country.

And as she arrives in country
and gets off the plane,

she was met by the agents
of the Spanish National Police,

and they take her off to jail.

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- And we were staged up,
ready to go.

Executed the two locations
in Puerto Rico.

Two arrest teams, one to go
to Jos� Ferrer Sosa's house,

one to go to
Marcia V�zquez-Rijos's house.

It's one of the few times that
things actually go to plan.

- So she's in jail,
pending extradition

back to the U.S.

The whole thing takes
over a year

because she went back
to her Italian playbook.

Lo and behold,
she gets pregnant by an inmate.

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"I'm gonna have
a kid born in Spain.

"And because of this,
the Spanish

won't be able to extradite me
back to the U.S."

- It was that feeling of,
wow, could anything else

come from this woman?

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- But to her dismay,
the Spaniards

were having none of it.

They couldn't wait
to get rid of her.

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Knowing her propensity
for drama,

I don't want to fly her
commercial from Madrid

back to the U.S.
because she's gonna cause

a scene in the airplane,

and the pilot is gonna,
you know, kick her out

and kick the agents out.

So what I did
was I got authorization

to use one of the FBI's jets
to bring her back

straight to Puerto Rico.

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- We had everything
for the baby.

We had a carrier.
We had medical personnel.

- Prior to landing,
when we gave her

a final opportunity
to spend time with her child...

- Yes, I went up to her,
and I said,

"Hey, this is gonna be
your last, you know,

"breastfeeding opportunity.

Just so you're aware,
we're gonna land in San Juan."

And she immediately asked me,
"Is there gonna be any media?"

And, "Can I fix myself up?"

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- To me, it was mind-boggling.

You know, here you are,
facing life in prison

for the murder
of your husband.

You're about to lose your baby,
newborn baby.

You're probably
never gonna see her again

while you're free,

and all you care about
is looking good for the media?

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- 27 years in the FBI.

I worked criminal
my entire career.

I dealt with killers,
homicidal maniacs,

drug traffickers,
gun traffickers,

but when you got to talking
to them on a one-to-one level,

you could sort of understand

why they turned out
the way they turned out.

Aurea is the first
and last one in my career

that I could truly say
this person was evil.

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- She used her beauty,
her charm,

to try to get away
with murder.

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- We can't pick our cases.

We can just choose to work them

like they involve
our own family,

and I don't know
that I've ever had

an experience with such
a passionate next of kin

than Adam's father.

I really only see
that same passion

for seeking the truth
in law enforcement.

And so just to be able
to deliver for him

and his family is just huge.

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