Venezuelan gang arrests reveal threats and violence in Colorado apartment complexes

Aurora police on Wednesday formally identified nine members of a Venezuelan gang who have been charged in connection with 14 separate criminal incidents over the past 10 months, including at least seven events at apartment complexes that a property management company says have been “taken over” by the gang.

The alleged crimes linked to the Tren de Aragua members include two shootings, several assaults, robberies and instances of threats with weapons. The allegations also include domestic violence between intimate partners and disputes between housemates.

Court documents detailing allegations show that gang members in some cases intimidated and assaulted residents of the Edge at Lowry apartment complex at Dallas Street and 12th Avenue, the now-closed Fitzsimons Place apartments at 1568 Nome St. and the Whispering Pines Condominiums at 1357 Helena St.

The allegations contain no evidence of large-scale, organized, systematic gang extortion or control of the apartment complexes.

Aurora police named the members of Tren de Aragua and detailed the charges against them after former President Donald Trump twice mentioned Aurora during Tuesday night’s nationally televised debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump falsely claimed that violent immigrants were “taking over the cities,” further fueling the false narrative that Venezuelan gang members have overrun Aurora, a city of 400,000.

That saga began earlier this summer when property manager CBZ Management alleged that three of its Aurora properties — Edge at Lowry, Fitzsimons Place and Whispering Pines — had fallen into disrepair due to gang activity. City officials disputed that at the time, saying the properties had been cited for numerous long-standing code violations, unrelated to gang activity.

But right-wing social media influencers, politicians and news organizations seized on that report — and a viral video showing gun-wielding men in one of the apartment complexes — to spin the company’s claim into a false narrative that there was an out-of-control Venezuelan gang problem in the city.

Aurora city officials have repeatedly acknowledged that there are Tren de Aragua (TdA) members in Aurora, but have said their numbers are small and they operate in isolated areas.

Those isolated areas include properties owned by CBZ Management, according to the gang members’ arrest records. The company said in an Aug. 9 letter to Mayor Mike Coffman, Aurora Interim Police Chief Heather Morris and City Manager Jason Batchelor that apparent gang members went door to door at the Whispering Pines property and attempted to collect rent from residents, among other allegations.

Aurora police spokesman Joe Moylan said police on Wednesday investigated several reports of such extortion but have not yet found evidence strong enough to make an arrest.

The data shows that the arrests made by Aurora police among members of Tren de Aragua point to more isolated incidents.

Allegations of burglaries, theft and shootings

In May, a couple living in the Edge at Lowry apartments told Aurora police that a 23-year-old Tren de Aragua member entered their apartment through a bedroom window while they were sleeping and ordered them outside at gunpoint. When the couple opened their front door, five or six other men entered the apartment and the man who entered their apartment said something along the lines of “they’re running (expletive),” according to an affidavit.

The couple walked to their car, but the group of men followed them and threatened to kill them, so they abandoned the car and left the area before calling police, the affidavit said. The man who broke into their apartment was arrested and charged with burglary, kidnapping, menacing, robbery and grand theft auto, the documents state.

The same man has been charged with crimes in five of the 14 incidents linked to the gang, Aurora police said. He was charged with allegedly threatening his roommate with a knife in December, stealing 51 pairs of sunglasses worth $17,850 from an Aurora store in May, threatening a woman in what officers said was a domestic violence incident and committing theft in Boulder County. Court records for the Boulder incident were not available Wednesday.

The most serious incident at CBZ Management properties in the 10-month period was a July 28 shooting at the Fitzsimons Place Apartments, a building that has since been condemned and whose residents have been evicted. Four members of Tren De Aragua were arrested in connection with that shooting, which is described in court records as a multiple-person shootout on at least three floors of the building’s exterior walkways.

Court documents say two men were shot and a third broke his leg when he jumped from a fourth-floor window to escape the gunfire.

Tren de Aragua member Jhonardy Pacheco-Chirinos, 22, was charged with assault in that attack after police said surveillance footage showed him “recklessly” shooting from the first floor to the third floor of the building. His brother, Tren de Aragua member Jhonardy Dejesus Pacheco-Chirinos, was charged with attempted murder in the shooting.

Jhonardy Pacheco-Chirinos was also arrested for an assault on November 12, 2023, at the apartment complex.

In that incident, witnesses told police that a group of men were drinking in a shared courtyard and that the group became “rough,” fighting and throwing bottles at each other around 2 a.m. The group eventually targeted the victim of the attack — a resident of the complex who was nearby but not part of the group — and multiple people attacked him, at one point smashing a beer bottle over his head.

One witness told police the men claimed they “run this place,” court documents show, and another witness told investigators the suspects claimed they “owned” the property, according to a sworn statement.

In a July 2 incident at Whispering Pines, a woman who worked as a housekeeper at the complex told police that a 28-year-old Tren de Aragua member tried to kick in a door to the building’s security camera room and threatened her with a gun when she tried to stop him. He was arrested and charged with menacing and attempted burglary.

Another Venezuelan gang member, Luis Miguel Calzadilla-Rojas, 32, was charged with attempted first-degree murder after police say he shot a man in the leg on Jan. 3 as the man walked away from Whispering Pines. The victim told police he had slept in the hallway of the apartments the night before and believed he was targeted because he was a black man in an area marked with graffiti as MS-13 gang territory.

Other incidents linked to the gang did not occur at the three properties mentioned (two occurred outside Aurora) and several involved personal conflicts and domestic violence.

On April 2, a man who rented rooms in his Lima Street single-family home in Aurora confronted tenants who had not paid their rent for months. His tenants, including a 23-year-old Tren de Aragua member, attacked him, stabbed him, tied him up for hours and threatened to kill him before finally letting him go, according to an affidavit.

“A small presence in Tren de Aragua”

Investigations into the gang are ongoing, police said. The 10 identified Tren de Aragua members — one has not been charged with a crime — represent a small portion of Aurora’s total gang population, and gang members in Aurora represent less than 1 percent of the city’s residents. A gang investigation last year identified 36 separate gangs with 1,355 members.

Mayor Coffman and Councilwoman Danielle Jurinksy said in a joint statement Wednesday that “criminal activity, including TdA issues, had had a significant impact” on the three properties, but still blamed CBZ Management for the poor living conditions in the building.

“We are concerned that there is a small Tren de Aragua (TdA) presence in Aurora and we have taken it seriously. We have responded. We have made arrests. We will continue to make arrests,” the statement said. “We will continue to address the problems that the absentee, foreign owners of these properties have allowed to fester unchecked.”

Coffman and Jurinksy, who have both repeatedly claimed the apartments have been taken over by gang members, called claims that the city has been overrun “simply not true.”

“… Problems that exist in a select number of properties do not apply to the city as a whole or large parts of it,” their joint statement said. “TdA has not ‘taken over’ the city.”

___

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.