Macheteros

aka Boriqua Popular Army, Ejercito Popular Boricua, EPB Movimiento Popular Revolucionario, Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores Puertorriquenos

The Macheteros—Spanish for “machete wielders”—was considered one of the more successful and dangerous Puerto Rican militant nationalist organizations. Macheteros, a splinter group of another nationalist organization, the FALN, emerged in the late 1970s and is believed to be responsible for numerous attacks on Puerto Rico's military and government, as well as one of the largest bank robberies in U.S. history.

On August 24, 1978, the Macheteros issued its first communiqué, claiming responsibility for the death of a Puerto Rican police officer, Julio Rodriguez Rivera, who had been shot and killed at a beach in Naguabo. The act was in retaliation for the murder by police of two independentistas, Arnaldo Dario Rosado and Carlos Soto Arrivi, at Cerro Maravilla, Puerto Rico, in July 1978.

Unlike the FALN, which primarily bombed public buildings, banks, ...