U.S. authorities arrested dozens of members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua during recent operations in two major American cities.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said 16 suspected gang members were nabbed Tuesday in Aurora, Colorado, after the criminals were linked to a home invasion and kidnapping at an apartment building that Tren de Aragua had taken over.
That came less than two weeks after federal agents handcuffed 22 suspected gangsters in New York City during raids in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain did not share the suspects’ identities, but said they are all Venezuelan nationals who took part in an attack on a man and woman that he described as “torture.”
The police chief said the victims were bound, pistol-whipped and terrorized by the armed gangsters who took the victims out of one unit at the Edge of Lowry apartments and hauled them off to another one.
Chief Chamberlain said the victims were also Venezuelan immigrants, and the man was stabbed during the violent abduction.
“Individuals involved in this type of activity, they victimize their own race and their own ethnicity, and the reason they do that is because they know, because of their status, they will not come forward to police.” Chief Chamberlain said at a press conference last week.
ICE officials said the suspects will remain in federal custody while their court proceedings play out.
Tren de Aragua’s caught-on-camera takeover of the Edge of Lowry this summer thrusted the gang into the national consciousness and emphasized how poorly the U.S. southern border was being managed by the Biden administration.
President-elect Donald Trump mentioned the gang during his lone debate against Vice President Kamala Harris in September, shortly after surveillance video was released showing armed men going door-to-door in the building.
Local leaders shot back at Mr. Trump and denied his claim that the Edge of Lowry had ceded control to the violent transnational gang.
City officials and the company that runs the apartment building agreed this month to close down the beleaguered complex.
In New York City, federal agents arrested several Tren de Aragua members on Dec. 5 after following one ankle-monitor-wearing suspect to his apartment hideout, according to the New York Post.
Police said seven suspected gang members were taken into custody during the Bronx raid.
Many of those arrested in the New York City operations had multiple arrests, largely for shoplifting and other theft-related offenses.
Suspect Jhonaiker Alexander Gil Cardozo, 24, had been arrested four times, according to the Post.
Three of those arrests came in New York City over the summer on larceny, reckless endangerment and robbery charges. The other was a shoplifting charge in June in Greenville, South Carolina.
Mr. Cardozo crossed into the U.S. illegally in 2022 near Eagle Pass, Texas.
Some of the gang members had active deportation orders as well, yet were able to evade authorities after not being kept behind bars.
