Venezuelan gangs Reportedly foreclosed on several Colorado apartment buildings The city's mayor insisted on Thursday that all the incidents were part of an “organized criminal effort.”
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman spoke out about shocking footage that emerged this week showing a group of heavily armed men storming an apartment complex in the Denver suburb that locals say has been taken over by gangs.
“This is an organized criminal effort. Whether or not this is Tren de Aragua remains to be seen,” Kaufman said on Fox News in reference to the notorious South American prison gang. “But it doesn’t really matter. I mean, if they’re Venezuelan immigrants committing crime in an organized way then they’re a problem.”
Republican Kaufman claimed that at least two buildings “fell into the hands of these Venezuelan gangs,” with gang members “intimidating” property management “out of business.”
The footage was taken earlier this month and Received by KDVR Three men are shown with handguns and one with a rifle in the building shortly before the shooting began.
Another clip, taken at a different time, shows two men breaking into a unit with a tyre iron inside the same complex, The Edge at Lowry, where migrants have settled.
The city's leader criticized the federal government for allowing a flood of migrants into the country. Many of them have moved to the sanctuary city of Denver, which is about 10 miles west of Aurora.
Kaufman also questioned how migrants ended up in Aurora after it was made clear they weren’t welcome.
“I think we're the victims of a failed policy on the southern border … You have these massive waves of migrants coming across the border, many of them cross the border illegally, get arrested, seek political asylum, we don't do enough vetting, they're released into the country,” the mayor told Fox News.
“In the city of Aurora, we've done everything we can to keep them out of town, because it's not our problem. It's a federal problem.”
Kaufman speculated that federal officials may have worked in collusion with nonprofit organizations to place migrants in the building—thereby attracting criminal elements to the apartment complex, which aimed to exploit the migrants.
Despite the claims by Kaufman and Aurora Councilwoman Danielle Jurinski, Colorado Governor Jared Polis Office dismissed The buildings have been taken over by gang members.
A spokesman told the Post that police intelligence regarding the “alleged attack” was largely fabricated.
The governor's aide also said that “occupying buildings is illegal in Colorado.”
