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Aurora authorities have linked 10 people to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and arrested eight, the city said in a news release sent a day after the gang situation took center stage during the first presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, 2024. Credit: Aurora Police Department

Aurora Police officials have recently admitted that they had been arresting people suspected — though not yet confirmed at the time of their apprehensions — of being members of a Venezuelan gang operating in the metro Denver long before the media spotlight on the city.

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The gang’s activities also “significantly affected” apartment complexes in the city, officials acknowledged.

To date, authorities have linked 10 people to the gang and arrested eight, the city said in a news release sent a day after the gang situation in Aurora took center stage at last night’s first presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

In a joint statement from Mayor Mike Coffman and Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, the officials maintained that the gang issue was localized and limited to a few areas.

“As for the perception and reality of public safety in Aurora, please understand that issues experienced at a select few properties do not apply to the city as a whole or large portions of it,” the two officials said in a news release. “TdA has not ‘taken over’ the city.”

“Again, TdA’s presence in Aurora is limited to specific properties, all of which the city has been addressing in various ways for months,” they added.

While the city previously acknowledged the presence of gangs at apartment complexes, the statement from Coffman and Jurinsky — who chairs the council’s public safety panel — confirmed what The Denver Gazette has reported over the past several weeks: that the city, in fact, knew about the issue months ago or at least suspected that the gang was operating at several apartment complexes.

“For some time, well before concerns about TdA in Colorado generated national attention, APD had been arresting people for various criminal activities who had suspected, but not necessarily confirmed, TdA connections. To date, APD has now linked 10 people to TdA and has arrested eight of those people,” the officials said in the statement that the city manager and Aurora Police Department helped put together.

“Two of the eight individuals who were taken into custody were involved in a July shooting at one of the specific properties in the city that have experienced issues with TdA activity. In line with these arrests, we can also now confirm that criminal activity, including TdA issues, had significantly affected those properties,” the officials said.

The Aurora Police Department released the names of all 10 suspects linked to the Venezuelan gang, of whom eight had been arrested over the past year.

The police listed all 10 as a “documented member” of the gang.

The information that the police released on Wednesday offered a comprehensive look into the gang’s activities — or at least what they had been accused of perpetuating — in metro Denver. The police sought the suspects for a string of alleged crimes that included shootings, a beating, and threats to kill.

One alleged gang member faced numerous charges — notably kidnapping and robbery — for crimes that went back to December of last year. One shooting happened outside of a probation office.

The new information also stood in stark contrast to previous statements from city and police, who initially dismissed claims that the gang’s presence created an atmosphere of fear that precluded a property management company from caring for the apartment complexes.