Denver Tren de Aragua gang violence spreads to Aurora, Colorado

Denver's decision to welcome migrants with open arms is sparking bloodshed in neighboring suburbs. A notorious Venezuelan prison gang has set up shop in Aurora, Colorado – even though the city wanted nothing to do with the influx of asylum seekers in the first place.

Aurora – a quiet bedroom community of 390,000 just east of the Mile-High City – has become a base of operations for the brutal Tren de Aragua gang, which has occupied several apartment complexes and sparked a wave of violent crime.

Denver leads the nation in the number of newly arriving migrants per capita: more than 40,000 people have arrived across the southern border since December 2022.

The city has scrambled to provide assistance, even drastically cutting emergency services to help cover some of the costs, which are estimated to be over $68 million so far and rising.

But Aurora has made it clear that it does not share Denver's desire to become the country's leading sanctuary city.

In February, the Aurora City Council passed a resolution by a vote of 7-3 emphasizing that it would not provide resources and assistance to immigrants or others who have migrated to the community from neighboring cities.

“The situation here is pretty tense, we can feel it,” City Councilor Danielle Jurinsky, who supports the resolution, told Fox News' “America's Newsroom.”

“We will not provide any assistance in this refugee crisis.”

But Denver's generosity has already become a problem for Aurora, where the community has faced increasing gang violence since Tren de Aragua moved into town and took whatever it could get its hands on, according to police, government and law enforcement sources.

The Cookie Monster

According to law enforcement sources, a local gang leader decided to settle in the city. His name is Jhonardy Jose Pacheco-Chirino, and he goes by the nickname “Galleta,” which is Spanish for “cookie.”

A few months after arriving in the U.S., police say, he and other gang members brutally beat a man in a gang-occupied apartment complex in Aurora. In July, he was arrested again – this time for shooting in the same complex, injuring two men.

Members of Tren de Aragua are accused of a number of violent crimes in the United States – including the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley earlier this year and the shooting of two NYPD officers during an arrest in June. The gang's leaders have recently given their members the “green light” to shoot American police officers who try to hinder their criminal activities.

A local investor in a company that owns several apartment complexes in Aurora said there was a “massive shooting” at one of the properties occupied by the gang.

“I’m afraid something like this could happen in America,” the source said.

Earlier this month, Aurora police announced they had formed a task force with the Colorado State Patrol and the Colorado Bureau of Investigations to counter the growing gang threat.

Aurora police declined to provide further details about the task force, but said in a statement: “APD will not tolerate violent crime in our communities.”

John Fabbricatore, a former head of ICE's Denver-area office who is now running for Congress, said the gang was out of control in the area – and authorities were slow to respond.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that certain city officials, including the Aurora Police Department, have downplayed or ignored the criminal activity affecting many northern Aurora neighborhoods,” Fabbricatore said.

“Notably, there has been activity by illegal immigrant gangs in certain apartment complexes throughout Aurora. However, these problems have been downplayed for seemingly ideological reasons.”

Despite the Tren de Aragua's numerous crimes in Denver, Marc Sears, president of the Aurora police union, said it was “absolutely inaccurate” to say the gang was taking over the city.

“They are no different from any other documented gang we have. I can tell you that officers are concerned about this so-called 'green light' that they are giving officers. Sure, there are concerns, but in my opinion as a union president, we have had a green light since 2020.”

Free to wreak havoc

When Pacheco-Chirino – a suspected gang “shooter” – crossed the southern border into Texas in 2022, he was vetted by federal border authorities, who found nothing troubling about his past – and then released, Department of Homeland Security sources said.

He told border guards he was going to New York, but ended up at an ICE office in Colorado in June 2023, where he received a court date and was released again.

Shortly thereafter, he began to create chaos in the community.

In November 2023, Pacheco-Chirino allegedly took part in a brutal attack that ended in near-fatal deaths at the Fitzsimons Place apartment complex in Aurora. The complex was recently closed for building code violations. The owners argued they could not fix those violations because the gang had taken over the building, according to court documents obtained by The Post.

During the attack, Pacheco and several other intoxicated men, who are allegedly “part of a gang that steals from Walmart” and claimed “they run” the apartment, allegedly hit the victim on the head with a bottle of Corona and then began beating him after he fell to the ground, the documents say.

The apartment investor told The Post he had “lost control of several properties” because the gang had taken over units.

“First they hung around the property and created a bad element that is constantly there. And then, a few months ago, they started taking over vacant units.”

Soon, the alleged gang members began renting the apartments to other migrants, who also “threatened” them. They then began terrorizing the housing staff, who were forced to leave the apartments and leave them to the gangs.

The bleeding victim of Pacheco-Chirino's alleged attack suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken nose and a broken upper jaw, according to the documents.

Pacheco-Chirino was eventually caught in March 2024 and charged with multiple counts of aggravated assault, but was released on bail and subsequently failed to appear for his court date, court records show.

On July 28, 2024, police arrested Pacheco-Chirino and three others on suspicion of carrying out a shooting in the same apartment where the previous attack occurred. Two male victims suffered gunshot wounds and another suffered a broken ankle.

This time, Pacheco-Chirino was quickly arrested and handed over to ICE.

An immigration judge ordered his deportation last week, but sources say he will likely stay here because he is from Venezuela, a country that does not accept deportations from the United States.

Tren de Aragua, a group based in Venezuela's Aragua region, has been secretly smuggling members across the southern border into the United States for years. Within the United States, the group has also begun recruiting members among migrant communities, particularly in New York, Denver and Chicago.

One of the gang members, 21-year-old Jean Torres-Roman, was arrested in New Mexico this month in connection with a shocking and violent robbery of a Denver jewelry store on June 25 that was captured on video.

Sears, the president of the Aurora police union, said he and other police officers were on the scene after the shooting at the apartment complex to cordon off the apartment where Pacheco-Chirino's alleged crimes took place.

There were no incidents and they did not find any contraband, he said. However, they did find that the gang members had vandalized the place, he said.

The garbage was piled “two stories high.”