Aurora officials knew, or strongly suspected, for much longer than previously disclosed that the Venezuelan gang operating in their city was much larger than a handful of members at a single apartment complex, according to emails obtained by The Denver Gazette.

Authenticated by city officials, the cache represented more than two dozen internal Aurora Police Department emails dating back to Sept. 11, 2023.

This is nearly a year before it was publicly known that the Venezuelan prison gang known as Tren de Aragua (TdA) was operating in the Denver metro area and before city officials shuttered an apartment complex.

The emails painted a dire picture showing internal conflicts and worries about the political fallout — and a police force fearful of venturing into areas without a solid backup. They cited intelligence reports saying more than 100 TdA members were operating in the Denver area, and that the gang intended to make Denver their headquarters in the U.S.

Ryan Luby, a city of Aurora spokesperson, confirmed the emails.

“We must remember that police departments and the justice system as a whole must rely on admissible evidence, not hearsay, rumors and fragments of information,” Luby said in an email Thursday. “Contrary to claims made on social media and by select news organizations, the city, including APD, has remained consistent in responses on this matter.”

In August, city officials boarded up Aspen Grove, a 99-unit apartment complex on Nome Street near the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, citing a litany of long-standing health and safety violations. As previously reported by The Denver Gazette, emails from the attorney representing CBZ Management — the apartment owner — show the closure was meant to thwart the Venezuelan gang, which had taken over the complex through threats and intimidation.

Aurora officials were keenly aware of the optics.

“We have been in communication reference 1568 Nome with PAR (Police Area Representatives) as well as the City in regards to the abatement process at Nome — as of now from the City Manager’s Office the political problem with abating the Nome property is ‘unhousing’ all the migrants and the perception of how it looks especially in the winter time of essentially kicking everyone out due to the non-compliance on the owners,” an officer wrote in a Jan. 11 email.

The problem languished another seven months.

The unprecedented move to shutter an apartment complex for code violations left about 300 people — mostly immigrants — homeless in August.

CBZ Management, a Brooklyn-based company, owns Aspen Grove and 10 other properties in Colorado, including Whispering Pines and The Edge at Lowry in Aurora.

‘We’re coming for you’

The owners have repeatedly said the TdA gang exerted control over management at all three of their Aurora complexes.

“We would like to be able to resume normal operations at our buildings, but we cannot do so under the threat of present and immediate danger against residents, staff and management,” a spokesperson for the owners earlier said.

In fact, police were aware of this last fall when Zev Baumgarten, the property manager, was beaten on Nov. 14 at Whispering Pines by several men who had been drinking and listening to loud music in a vacant apartment.

“Zev advised he was punched around 20 times in the face and kicked numerous times on his torso,” an Aurora police report said.

Initially, city officials denied the Venezuelan gang had anything to do with the Aspen Grove closure and solely blamed absent landlords for deteriorating conditions at the complex.

“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 had said.

An independent report by the international law firm Perkins Coie — hired by a lender with investment interest in the apartment complexes — found that the gang entrenched itself at the Whispering Pines complex, using units for illegal activities that included the prostitution of minors. The gang — according to an Aug. 9 report shared with then-Interim Police Chief Heather Morris, Mayor Mike Coffman and City Manager Jason Batchelor — was also demanding half of the rent, drying up collections for the landlord.

“The evidence we have reviewed indicates that gang members are engaging in flagrant trespass violations, assaults and battery, human trafficking and sexual abuse of minors, unlawful firearms possession, extortion, and other criminal activities, often targeting vulnerable Venezuelan and other immigrant populations,” the report said.

In all this, a distinct modus operandi appears to be taking shape.

An operation earlier this month at a sprawling 678-unit apartment complex in San Antonio, Texas dubbed “Operation Aurora,” San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said TdA targeted immigrants, whom gang members moved into empty units to extract rent from them.

John Barker, owner of Palatia Apartment Homes in Texas, has said in media reports that the TdA racket in San Antonio was eerily similar to Aurora.

Barker declined to comment for this article.

In a sharp contrast to the public statements that Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain has made about the difficulty of identifying TdA gang members, McManus provided information about their colors — red — and tattoos as a means to identification.

“We’re on to you; we’re coming for you and we know where you are,” McManus said during an Oct. 5 press conference.

‘120 vetted TdA members’

Aurora police officers appeared to have first learned about the gang’s presence last fall.

Information on the gang emerged as police investigated a shooting at Aspen Grove on Sept. 10 last year, in which 556 rounds were expended during an exchange between a member of the H2K gang and some “Venezuelans.”

TdA is first mentioned in a Sept. 21, 2023 email chain requesting “intel on Tren de Aragua” in what officers identified as “a power struggle among Venezuelan and Mexican nationals.”

Officers were also beginning to suspect “many connections within several of our recent shootings” could be related to TdA gang activity in the city.

These internal emails also shed greater light on the scope of gang’s presence and operation in the Denver metro area.

Aurora and state officials have continually downplayed their presence in Aurora.

In a statement, Gov. Jared Polis’ office said the governor is “committed to supporting local law enforcement and their work to keep our communities safe.”

“The state was first notified by Homeland Security in late July that they were monitoring activity in Aurora, the state then immediately reached out to the city of Aurora, including the Governor reaching out to the Mayor, to offer any assistance needed,” the governor’s office said. “When Governor Polis met with Mayor Coffman in late July, we were informed that the city did not have a strong criminal case yet and the state offered dedicated investigative support in the form of Troopers and CBI agents to work cases, and DHSEM provided analysts to support investigations to identify and arrest known criminal gang elements.”

The governor’s office said Polis has been in “regular contact with the City of Aurora and its law enforcement. Aurora is a wonderful community full of hard-working people and small businesses and it’s disappointing to see some city leaders continuing to slam their own city. Anyone who commits a crime should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

At a press conference last month, Chamberlain acknowledged the city has 10 TdA gang members.

The department, Chamberlain said, has had difficulty verifying gang affiliations of those from Venezuela, which does not have a strong relationship with the United States. This creates real challenges for law enforcement, he said, suggesting Aurora police may have to rely on gang members self-identifying.

“So, being able to identify these individuals as TDA gang members has been a struggle,” Chamberlain said on Sept. 20.

Chamberlain added: “We don’t want to misidentify an individual as a gang member.”

But a month earlier, police said in the internal emails that they were informed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) agents that the feds had identified as many as 120 TdA gang members in the Denver area.

“We were told there is a list of 120 vetted TdA members and the top five shot callers were identified at each problem address,” officers said in an Aug. 23 email.

‘Won’t respond… without an armored vehicle’

Chamberlain’s public comments last month about the difficulty identifying TdA members also contradicted what Aurora police knew about the Venezuelan gang last year.

In an Oct. 5, 2023 bulletin, Aurora police said, “TdA members frequently wear Chicago Bulls Jordan #23 Jerseys and other attire with the ‘Jumpman’ log displayed. Members of TdA will have tattoos consisting of a clock, train, weapons, stars, Illuminati eye (only on hands) and the Bulls #23/ Air Jordan logo. These tattoos will commonly be located on their arms, calves and chest.”

Aurora police had grown wary of the gang.

With gang members having told apartment staff that they had the remaining CBZ buildings “under surveillance” and more than 200 people working for them, officers internally began to warn one another.

“I would highly recommend you guys to take 2-3 friends with you when responding to any calls there,” an officer said in a June 30 email.

For months, Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, the chair of Aurora’s public safety committee, has relayed the fears police officers have expressed to her about the Venezuelan gang.

Internal police emails confirmed this.

In an August email, about a week after Aspen Grove was boarded up, another officer said, “Patrol won’t respond to these locations without an armored vehicle.”

In addition, while Texas officials to appear to be leaning on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security — all of which participated in “Operation Aurora” in San Antonio earlier this month — the Aurora Police Department appears to have taken a different tact.

According to an Aug. 22 email, a federal task force was “cut out of all communication and investigations with RAVEN.”

RAVEN is an acronym for the Regional Anti-Violence Enforcement Network, which is comprised of more than a dozen state, local and federal agencies that includes the Denver Police Department, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Colorado Air National Guard and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

‘TdA has decided to make Denver their headquarters’

It is uncertain how many TdA gang members are now living in the United States.

But last year — according to an internal Oct. 5, 2023 Aurora police bulletin — the “FBI reported that there are 400 members of TdA in various cities in New York and are suspected to be involved in drug trafficking, homicide, kidnaping, and prostitution.”

According to officials at the U.S. border with Mexico in El Paso Texas, the majority of immigrants intended to travel to Denver, Chicago and New York City as their final destination.

The TdA gang appeared to favor Denver.

“Intelligence from ICE is that TdA has decided to make Denver their headquarters in the U.S. and will be violent toward anyone who encroaches on their territory,” the police bulletin said.

The reason?

Denver’s status as a sanctuary city.

Generally speaking, “sanctuary city” refers to policies that discourage local law enforcement from reporting an individual’s immigration status to federal authorities.

In response to questions from The Denver Gazette, the Denver Police Department said it was aware of a tip regarding the “possibility” of TdA members operating in the metro Denver area and the gang establishing its headquarters in the metropolis.

DPD said it has “uncovered no evidence that Denver is headquarters to TdA.”

The Denver police believe there are individuals who “may be” affiliated with Tren de Aragua in the city.

“DPD has and continues to work with local, state and federal partners to ensure that if criminal activity arises in Denver, it is swiftly handled and arrests are made,” the Denver police said, adding that the law enforcement department “does not ask witnesses or victims of crime about immigration status, removing a potential barrier to reporting” and that interpretation services are available for people who report crimes.

The Denver police said it did not assist Aurora in dealing with suspected TdA members.

Since December 2022, roughly 43,000 immigrants have arrived in Colorado’s most populous city after illegally crossing the southern border. The bulk of the immigrants are from South and Central America. The majority are from Venezuela.  

Initially, local officials believed the draw was because of the Mile High City’s proximity to El Paso, Texas, which is roughly 600 miles south of Denver.

Texas officials, however, pointed to Denver’s promise of free shelter and onward travel to newly arriving immigrants.

“There’s a pull factor created by this, and the policies in Denver for paying for onward destinations,” Irene Gutiérrez, executive director of El Paso County Community Services in west Texas, has said.

Over the past two years, Denver has experienced an influx of immigrants, mostly from South and Central America. Since 90 immigrants were left to wander in the cold downtown in December 2022, Denver has welcomed nearly 43,000 at a taxpayer cost of more than $75 million.

U.S. Census data — as well as plane, train and bus tickets to send immigrants to their final destination — suggest about half have stayed. 348

Editor’s note: This is a developing story.