The Venezuelan gangs that have reportedly overrun several Colorado apartment buildings are part of an “organized criminal effort,” the city’s mayor insisted on Thursday.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman addressed the shocking footage that emerged this week showing a crew 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 it’s Tren de Aragua, that remains to be seen,” Coffman said on Fox News in reference to the notorious South American prison gang. “But it really doesn’t matter. I mean, if they’re Venezuelan migrants in there conducting crime in an organized way they’re a problem.”
Coffman, a Republican, claimed at least two buildings “have fallen to these Venezuelan gangs,” in which the gang members “pushed out” the property management “through intimidation.”
The footage captured earlier this month and obtained by KDVR shows three men with handguns and one with a rifle in the building shortly before a shootout erupted.
Another clip at a different time shows two men breaking into a unit with a tire iron inside the same complex called The Edge at Lowry where migrants have moved in.
The city leader slammed the federal government for allowing migrants to flood into the country. Many of them have traveled to the sanctuary city of Denver, which is about 10 miles west of Aurora.
Coffman also questioned how migrants landed in Aurora after making clear they weren’t welcomed.
“I think we’re the victim of a failed policy at the southern border … you’ve got these massive waves of migrants coming across the border that many of them cross illegally, were arrested, ask for political asylum, we’re not adequately vetted, were released into the country,” the mayor told Fox News.
“The city of Aurora, we did everything we could to quite frankly keep them out of the city because it’s not our problem. This is a federal problem.”
Federal officials might have worked with non-profits to place migrants in the building, Coffman speculated – attracting a criminal element to the apartment complex meant to exploit the migrants.
Despite the assertions from Coffman and Aurora Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ office dismissed that the buildings have been seized by gang members.
A spokesperson told The Post police intelligence regarding this “purported invasion” is largely made-up.
The governor’s aide also noted “it’s illegal to take over buildings in Colorado.”
