Tren de Aragua, a criminal gang from Venezuela that is said to pose a threat as great as the Salvadoran gang MS-13, operates quietly in unknown neighborhoods and communities across the country.

The Gazette has confirmed the presence of Tren de Aragua, or TDA, in Colorado and reported that the gang has given a “green light” to gang members to attack or shoot at police, according to a memo from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to Albuquerque police.

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman admitted Thursday that a Venezuelan gang, believed to be Tren de Aragua, has taken control of several apartment complexes in the northern part of the city, calling it a “nightmare situation.”

He also admitted that the city has lost control over gang infiltration and that “we’re doing everything we can to get it back.”

The multinational criminal organization has taken advantage of the ongoing border crisis to lure its members to the United States and expand its presence in cities across the country. Police and elected officials are deeply concerned about the kind of violence they are seeing there, especially after one murder that has caught the spotlight.

Georgia nursing student Laken Riley was murdered in February while jogging, and police have identified Venezuelan illegal immigrant Jose Ibarra as her suspected killer. Ibarra is a reported member of the gang, a revelation that has thrown the criminal organization into the spotlight as the case against him and his brother, who is also a suspected gang member, goes to trial.

US Border Patrol

The gang has been around for over a decade and has grown from a prison-based gang to a gang that spans Venezuela and South America, and now penetrates American communities.

U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, whose district covers nearly half of the southern border, said he has warned about the gang and is deeply concerned about the grip it already has in the U.S., given its reputation as an “agent of chaos and terror in Central and South America.”

“For months, I have been raising the alarm about Tren de Aragua and the threat this gang poses to Americans,” Gonzales said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “We know that Tren de Aragua has expanded its operations in Mexico and that some of its members have found their way into the United States.”

Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who represents a state with one of the largest Venezuelan populations in the country, said in an interview that the gang has wreaked “havoc” in Central and South America and is now threatening to do the same in the United States.

Origin of Tren de Aragua

The gang got its name about a decade ago, but originated years earlier, according to the Venezuelan chapter of Transparency International, a research group founded by former World Bank employees.

“It has its origins in the unions that were working on the construction of a railway project that would connect the central-western part of the country and that was never completed,” the investigation report said. “By that time, Hector Rutherford Guerrero Flores, alias ‘Niño Guerrero,’ was the (leader) of the Aragua Penitentiary Center, better known as the Tocoron prison. Although the criminal organization originated outside the prison, the prison soon became its base of operations.”

Last year, more than 11,000 Venezuelan police and military officers raided the Tocoron prison, but not before many prisoners had escaped. Authorities found caches of ammunition and weapons in the prison where the gang’s leadership operated.

Tren de Aragua leader Guerrero Flores escaped from prison and remains at large. The U.S. Departments of State and Justice are offering up to $5 million for information on his whereabouts. He is believed to be in Colombia.

While in prison, Guerrero Flores expanded the gang to North America.

From Venezuela to America

Venezuela has descended into economic, humanitarian and political chaos under President Nicolás Maduro, who has jailed or exiled political leaders and used food distribution as a tool of social control. Opponents of Maduro’s government have been brutally punished.

More than 7 million Venezuelans have fled the country and sought refuge around the world. TDA members have taken advantage of that influx to hide in Venezuelan immigrant communities in the U.S.

While no one knows for sure what percentage of the more than 42,000 immigrants who have come to Denver from South and Central America in the past two years are from Venezuela, officials believe they make up the majority.

Since January 2021, nearly 700,000 immigrants from Venezuela have been encountered at the southern border.

Jason Owens, head of the U.S. Border Patrol, has confirmed that the gang has made multiple attempts to enter the U.S. and has also tried to raise the alarm via social media posts late last year.

“Keep an eye on this gang. Their criminal activities pose a serious threat to our communities!” Owens wrote in a statement to X.

Customs and Border Protection

The problem for Border Patrol agents is that they can only screen illegal immigrants in custody based on available information. Venezuela is not friendly to the U.S. government and does not share domestic crime data, making it difficult for agents to know whether a person in custody is a convicted felon in his home country.

Members of Tren de Aragua hide among the general population of Venezuelan immigrants seeking asylum or work in the US.

Because there are not enough beds to hold immigrants long-term and Venezuela refuses to accept repatriated US citizens, the US government has been forced to release most of them into the country.

Crime in American Cities

According to a report from NBC, federal law enforcement agencies have launched more than 100 investigations into crimes involving members of Tren de Aragua.

The types of crimes extend beyond drug trafficking and extortion, which are common ways for gangs to make money. Tren de Aragua is reportedly involved in large-scale sex trafficking schemes across the country and shootings of police officers.

Last month, two New York City police officers were shot by suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang, who were taken into custody. Bernardo Raul Castro-Mata, 19, was arrested in connection with the shooting and had tattoos associated with the gang, including a five-pointed crown, five-pointed stars and teardrops, according to the New York City Police Department.

The gang is also believed to operate an extensive sex trafficking network, extorting female immigrants who owe their members tens of thousands of dollars for smuggling them into the US.

According to a criminal complaint shared with CNN, “hideaway houses” where people are held by the gang without the freedom to leave have been busted in Louisiana, Texas, New Jersey and Florida.

The traffickers threatened the women being held against their will, saying they would kill their relatives in Venezuela if they did not cooperate and reclaim responsibility for smuggling them into the U.S. by performing sex acts.

In January, Yurwin Salazar-Maita, 23, was arrested on suspicion of luring, kidnapping and murdering a retired Venezuelan police officer in Florida.

Follow the gang

According to director Christopher Wray, the FBI is on the trail of the gang.

“We are in constant communication with our intelligence partners, in some cases with local law enforcement and foreign partners to see whether it’s drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, various types of violent crimes, various types of human trafficking and smuggling, even things like organized shoplifting,” Wray told lawmakers during a congressional hearing in April.

Gonzales urged Wray to dive deeper into the Tren de Aragua.

Rubio, Gonzales and Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar have pressured the White House to immediately declare the gang a transnational criminal organization.

“The heinous crimes committed by the Tren de Aragua, such as the rape of several children and the murder of retired police officer José Luis Sánchez Valera and nursing student Laken Riley, must stop,” the lawmakers, along with 23 other members, wrote in a letter earlier this year.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, immigrants are screened by U.S. border officials. People who pose a threat to national security or public safety are denied entry. They are detained, deported, or referred to other federal agencies.

Failure to designate Tren de Aragua as a transnational criminal organization would allow the group to expand within the U.S., they warned.

“By doing this, we can deploy more resources to combat Tren de Aragua and mobilize awareness around the gang’s activities. Now is the time to act and the window is closing before it’s too late,” Gonzales told the Examiner.

Gazette reporter Nico Brambila contributed to this report.