The prisoner exchange took place in December 2014 as part of a broader agreement to move toward the normalization of Cuba–United States relations. In addition to the three remaining Cubans who were returned to Cuba, Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a Cuban who had worked as an agent for American intelligence until his arrest in November 1995 was returned to the United States. Sarraff was described as a key figure in Cuban intelligence, a cryptologist who provided the Central Intelligence Agency with information that helped the CIA arrest Cuban spies long after Sarraff's arrest and imprisonment. The exchange of prisoners coincided with Cuba's release of American contractor Alan Phillip Gross, jailed in Cuba since December 2009, although both governments characterized the release of Gross as unrelated to the prisoner exchange.