Emil Ramirez was an accountant with Alliance Moving, a criminal front group run by Vanowen that occasionally carried out jobs for the anarchist Zapata. Ramirez was caught embezzling money and committed first-degree murder in the process of covering his tracks, leading to his conviction and incarceration in the Federal Holding Facility in Downtown Los Angeles. After a tip from an affiliated arms dealer, Adrian Tintfass, that linked Alliance Moving to Zapata, CTU agents Jack Bauer and Ryan Chappelle formulated an undercover operation to place Jack inside the prison as Ramirez's cellmate, thereby uncovering information leading to Zapata's capture. The prison warden and Officer Adam Cox were the only two personnel in the facility to be made aware of Jack's objective.