The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed on Monday that it regards Colorado as “ground zero” for “some of the most violent criminals in America” and the “command center” of a transnational gang that originated in the prisons of Venezuela.

“We are learning that the command and control for TdA in the entire United States of America is right here in Colorado,” Derek Maltz, the acting director of the DEA, said in a Denver7 report.  

Maltz was referring to Tren de Aragua, a gang that started in Tocorón Penitentiary Center in Aragua, a state in north-central Venezuela. TdA has expanded the footprint of its criminal enterprises into at least eight Latin American countries, including Brazil, Colombia and Chile.

It’s unclear when TdA was first discovered in the U.S., but it is believed that gang members embedded themselves with immigrants fleeing the political and economic collapse in Venezuela. Nearly eight million Venezuelans have already fled their country under President Nicolás Maduro’s regime, with more than 500,000 estimated to be living in the U.S.

On Monday, a spokesperson for the anti-narcotics agency confirmed Maltz’s remarks to Denver7.

“They are accurate,” said Steffan Tubbs, who speaks for the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division. 

When asked to back up the claims, Tubbs said the agency will not issue any other statements “at this time.”

This is not the first time that authorities identified Colorado — more specifically the metro Denver area — as a base of operations for the TdA, the Venezuelan gang that infiltrated and took over at least two apartment complexes in Aurora. 

Internal political communications, obtained by The Denver Gazette last year, cited federal intelligence reports as saying the Venezuelan gang eyed Denver as its headquarters in the U.S.

“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,” one bulletin by the Aurora Police Department from October 2023 said.

At the time, 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.

The Denver Police Department said it “uncovered no evidence that Denver is headquarters to TdA.” Denver police said there were individuals who “may be” affiliated with TdA in the city.

It is uncertain how many TdA gang members are now living in the U.S.

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, kidnapping, and prostitution.”

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.

Invoking the Aliens Enemies Act, the Trump administration this month ordered the arrest of TdA members, declaring that the gang is “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”

The order is on hold. A federal judge has barred the administration from deportations under the 18th century law.

Todd Chamberlain, chief of the Aurora Police Department, recently told The Denver Gazette that he quickly noticed when he joined the local force that there was a lack of understanding about what it was dealing with — and that exacerbated the problem.

At the beginning, Aurora’s reluctance to identifying the issue as a TdA challenge was “misplaced,” and the city spent more time pushing back from the problem then addressing it, because of “the lack of understanding about what they were confronted with,” the chief said. 

Now, the police are in the process of repairing trust with the community, he said.

“There was a lot of the community who were frustrated, I think they felt abandoned, and in a sense, I’ll be honest with you, I think they were,” he said.

The issue also “came quick” because of “complete mismanagement” of the illegal immigration crisis into the Denver metro area, according to the police official.

TdA is a gang notorious for victimizing Venezuelans with the understanding that immigrants would be less likely to report crimes against them to the police, Chamberlain said.

“They weren’t randomly picking at people, they were picking at people they knew were weak,” he said. “They also knew that there was a high propensity that those individuals would not report to police based on their status and their belief of what law enforcement was in their own country of origin.”

Maltz, the DEA official, visited the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Division March 13, when he told Denver7 that he learned more about TdA from the agents in Colorado than anywhere else. 

“I was on national news talking about TdA when they started emerging in New York City, when they were ripping pocketbooks off the necks of elderly women, and they were dragging people on mopeds down the blocks. And I didn’t know anything about TdA,” he told Denver7.  “We’re the DEA, and we’re going to continue to go after the worst drug traffickers and narco terrorists and terrorists. Now, we’re going to continue to clean up the communities.”

Reporters Nico Brambila, Kyla Pearce and Sage Kelley contributed to this report.