This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

On a recent trip to Puerto Rico, producer Jacob Medina Gleason was introduced to a piece of family history.

It's an old manila folder with a photo of her grandfather, Tomas Velas Lopez, attached to the front.

In the picture, Tomas is a young 20-something with thick, wavy hair and a full Tom Sillac mustache.

And across the top of the folder, in big, bold letters, it reads,

Division of Special Investigations, and it has his case number.

I don't know if they started from one, but if they did, he was 7,480.

The Intelligence Division opened a case on Jacob's grandpa in the 1970s.

The folder contains over 60 pages of notes and details about Tomas's life, mundane things

that are common in police files, his height, his weight, his license plate number.

But there were other less mundane details too.

There's a line here that says,

"'Peligroso, no.'

So it's, is he dangerous?

And no, he apparently was not dangerous.'" is, Beligroso, no. So is he dangerous?

And no, he apparently was not dangerous.

Flipping through the folder,

it was clear that my grandpa was part of a big investigation.

But as I kept reading through the documents,

I couldn't find what crime he was being accused of,

or any allegations at all.

Instead, what I learned is that his case was about something else entirely.

...