Federal agents working with Aurora police and Arapahoe County sheriff’s deputies arrested 28 people on drug and firearms charges, including eight who they say are leaders and members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, officials announced in a news conference Monday.
The arrests stem from a joint investigation that started last fall into increased crime activity near an Aurora apartment complex, Ivy Crossing, U.S. Attorney Peter McNeilly said.
Undercover agents seized 69 firearms and several pounds of drugs during the 10-month operation, including fentanyl, pink cocaine and methamphetamine. Five were charged with a murder-for-hire plot in which they agreed to kill two people for $15,000, but did not carry out the killings.
Two of the alleged gang leaders, Luis Fernando Uribe-Torrealba and Luis Henriquez Charaima, were captured on July 30 in Colombia and are awaiting extradition to the U.S., McNeilly said.
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“I think this case marks remarkable progress in the fight against Tren de Aragua but we’re not done and these agencies are not finished working on it,” McNeilly said.
McNeilly could not confirm how many people affiliated with the gang are currently in Colorado or if any of those arrested were responding to national gang leadership in Venezuela. He also could not say if the alleged TdA members were affiliated with the gang prior to coming to the U.S. or if they were recruited here.
According to federal court documents, agents identified Uribe-Torrealba as a “boss” of TdA through interviews with sources who said he was in charge of drug transactions and other criminal activity.
Arapahoe County Sheriff Tyler Brown said there has been a 75% reduction in calls for service near the apartment complex between January and August compared with the same period in 2024 and 2023.
The city of Aurora became ground zero in a national political battle about immigration after a video circulated last year showing armed men trying to get inside a separate apartment complex, The Edge at Lowry.
The complex has since been boarded up and residents were forced to find new homes. While the apartment complex was a criminal hot spot, many residents said the bigger issue was poor management by CBZ Management.
“A year and a half ago in the city of Aurora, many people here didn’t even know what TdA was. That changed drastically,” Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said. “We learned what their mission was — their mission was to be like a parasite and basically take over any area that they can control. We also know that TdA, without question in Aurora, their mission and their primary goal is to victimize the immigrants that they came here with.”
Peter Schulte, city attorney for Aurora, said gang members likely came to the city because of the lack of management at The Edge.
“This isn’t because Aurora is crime ridden or it’s a horrible place — it’s not. It’s because these buildings were just not being managed,” Schulte said. “It allowed the criminal element to come in, take over those buildings.”
The investigation included 40 undercover operations with agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Customs and Immigration and Enforcement and the Department of Justice.