- The Bureau of Investigation and the Colorado Highway Patrol will lead the new task force, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman announced | Photo: Shutterstock
Colorado (USA) authorities, together with federal authorities, announced this week the creation of a task force that seeks to identify and arrest members of the transnational criminal gang Tren de Aragua, which has been operating for months in the Denver metropolitan area.
Since the beginning of the month, police departments in major cities in Colorado have been on alert for possible threats against officers in that state by the international criminal organization that has begun to gain influence in the United States.
The Bureau of Investigation and the Colorado Highway Patrol will lead the new task force, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman announced this week.
The group is already operating
The official said the task force “has already been operating in practice for some time,” but that the agreement, which includes the Aurora Police Department (APD), has now been formalized to facilitate “interactions with the community that allow for receiving information from residents.”
There will be a strong and visible presence in areas with concentrations of Venezuelan immigrants so that we, or our local, state and federal law enforcement personnel, can identify criminals and arrest them,” Coffman explained.
The new working group, he added, will allow for “maximizing results, sharing intelligence and engaging in ongoing joint investigations.”
At the same Aurora City Council meeting, APD Interim Deputy Chief Chris Juul said the new group will help determine “who they are, what they’re doing and how many there are” active members of Tren de Aragua in the Denver area, in order to “know the reality of the situation compared to the rest of the public information nationwide.”
The new squad will be supported by the federal government’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Regional Anti-Violence Enforcement Network (RAVEN), a team specializing in arresting “violent criminals, gang members and drug traffickers,” according to its website.
Reasons for the formation of the group
The final decision to form the task force came after 3,000 to 4,000 Venezuelans gathered in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Aurora on July 28 to protest the results of their country’s election, an unauthorized event that raised concerns among local officials about the disruptions it caused in the town.
Additionally, Aurora Councilmembers Danielle Jurinsky, Stephanie Hancock and Steve Sundberg mentioned at a weekly meeting on Aug. 8 that there was “a major gang problem” at an apartment building that was subsequently evicted by local police on Aug. 12 due to administrative violations.
In that building, where some 3,000 Venezuelan families resided, 41 crimes were recorded in 2022, 84 in 2023 and 66 in the first half of 2024, according to the APD.
The APD is also investigating the conditions of a second apartment building, managed by the same company as the other one that was closed, which also has a majority of recently arrived Venezuelan residents.
According to the local municipality, there has been a sharp increase in violence and crime at this location recently. The evacuation of this location could begin this week.
Aurora police would neither confirm nor deny the validity of the three council members’ statements, though Deputy Chief Juul stressed that the group’s goal is to “target criminal activity involving immigrant communities.”
“We remind all community members, including those in our immigrant communities, to report crimes committed against them to local authorities and not remain silent victims,” Juul said.
With information from EFE
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2024-08-22 08:29:02
