Aurora officials have been walking back initial statements dismissing claims that a Venezuelan prison gang was primarily responsible for deteriorating conditions at an apartment complex that the city shut down a few weeks ago.

CBZ Management, which operates Aspen Grove and at least two other complexes the gang is believed to have infiltrated, have blamed the conditions on the gang, saying its presence precluded its staffers from maintaining the apartments. 

The city’s tone has since changed.

“We’ve never denied the possibility of gang activity, to my knowledge,” Ryan Luby, an Aurora Police spokesperson, told The Denver Gazette in an Aug. 20 email. “On the Nome St. abatement, we said any such activity, whether valid or not, was immaterial to the situation as the core, foundational basis for the abatement there was longstanding code issues.”

Luby added: “Multiple things can be true at the same time.”

That’s not what Luby previously said.

“Instead of expending the resources to address the documented issues, CBZ and its stakeholders have hired a team of attorneys and, as we learned today, a Florida-based public relations firm to engage in diversionary tactics, fight the city in its city charter-mandated duties to enforce city code, and alternative narratives with many of you,” Luby said on Aug. 5.

Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua used border chaos to infiltrate U.S.

Luby cited a laundry-list of issues at the apartment complex that included rodent infestations, sewage backups and trash pileups, water leaks, shattered or missing windows and lack of heat and electricity.

“The building owners and managers made the decision to effectively abandon their paying tenants, and this is the unfortunate consequence,” Luby said.

Earlier this month, city officials shuttered Aspen Grove, a 98-unit complex, evicting 300 people, mostly immigrants.

Tren de Aragua is the prison gang known as TDA, a Venezuela-based, transnational criminal organization known for targeting desperate immigrants and believed to be behind a spree of kidnappings, extortion and other crimes tied to immigrants from South and Central America.

The gang has a diverse portfolio of criminal activities that includes human trafficking, particularly immigrant women and girls, drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion and money laundering.

Despite repeated questions about TDA’s activities in the complex, city officials had declined to say.

Until now.

Earlier this week, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman acknowledged what he called a “nightmare situation” with gangs having taken control of several apartment complexes. He also admitted that the city had “lost control” of the situation, vowing to “aggressively” take it back. 

But the mayor pushed back on the national media’s recent portrayal of an entire city being overrun by gangs.

“The misrepresentation that all of Aurora has this problem is simply not true and it gives this city a black eye unjustifiably,” Coffman said. “Arrests have been made. More arrests will be made.”

On Friday, the Aurora Police Department also said authorities arrested a “documented” TDA gang member — twice — over a shooting incident and a separate case in which a man was badly beaten. After the first arrest, that gang member, the police said, was released on a $20,000 bond. 

The police noted that they are “not aware of his status within the gang,” likely a reference to reports that he is TDA’s ringleader or “shot caller” in the region. 

The initial dismissal of gang-related activities and recent admission that apartment complexes have, in fact, been infiltrated appeared to paint a picture of a city that sought to underplay the problem, only to be confronted by videos of shootings and men swarming an apartment unit with rifles.   

“This is a tough problem to admit to,” Aurora City Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky told The Denver Gazette on Friday. “I don’t think any city wants to admit to having a problem like this. It was kind of to save face.”

Venezuelan gang infiltrated Colorado apartment complexes, Aurora official says

Aurora officials are not the only ones to have downplayed the gang’s activities. The mayor of neighboring Denver insisted that TDA’s footprint is “small,” compared to well-known and established gangs operating in the metropolis. 

Shelby Wieman, a spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis, has said Aurora officials should not be airing their dirty laundry for “right-wing media” to consume.

In an email to The Denver Gazette on Friday, Wieman said Polis has been “in regular contact” with city officials over the past month and has offered state support.

“Colorado is a zero-tolerance state for illegal activity, taking over buildings has no place in Colorado, and the governor hopes that the city of Aurora shares this basic value and will enforce the law,” Wieman said.

But Wieman also took aim at Jurinsky, who has been outspoken about the issue.

“If Danielle Jurinsky has evidence of illegal activity in Aurora that can assist the investigation, it might even be illegal for her to withhold it from the Aurora Police Department and she should file a report immediately,” Wieman said. “The state has been ready for weeks to back up any operation by the Aurora Police Department needed to make Aurora safer.”

One video — posted by Vicente Arenas of Fox 31 Denver and sent to Jurinsky by local residents — shows five men walking up the stairs of an apartment. Four of the men appear to have guns, including rifles, and the fifth man holds what appears to be a cellphone.

The men then open the apartment door, though the footage does not show them fully entering the residence. Jurinsky claimed that the footage showed members of Tren de Aragua.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnson — who vigorously defended his administration’s response to influx of some 42,000 immigrants who crossed America’s borders illegally and arrived in his city since December 2022 — said the gang situation has been overblown.

“The threat from TDA in Denver, it’s smaller than many other organized criminal networks that might have been here for decades — the ones you know, like the Bloods or the Crips or others, and so we’re monitoring it closely,” Johnston told The Denver Gazette’s news partner 9News.

Based in Brooklyn, CBZ Management operates rental apartments in New York and Colorado with 11 properties in Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

At least three of its complexes in Aurora — Aspen Grove, The Edge at Lowry and Whispering Pines — have been identified as havens for gang activity.

A CBZ spokesperson declined to comment Friday, but the company has previously defended its actions.

“Because we care for the safety of our tenants, and other members of the community, what we will say is, that the issue of Tren de Aragua taking over properties and communities in Aurora means that we are not able to be present on this property, or any of our other properties in similar situations, also being impacted by gang presence,” the spokesperson earlier said.

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