Colorado: ‘Command and Control’ Center for Violent Venezuelan Gang

Acting DEA Administrator Derek Maltz has a warning for members Tren de Aragua (TdA) in Colorado: “Start running now.” The violent Venezuelan gang doesn’t just have a large presence in the Centennial State; it apparently uses it as a “command and control” center.

In an exclusive interview with Denver7, Maltz said he believed the illegal migrants have been taking advantage of Colorado’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses, including the state’s sanctuary policies. As reported by Just the News, Representative Jeff Crank (R-CO) says the policies enacted by Governor Jared Polis handcuffs local law enforcement’s ability to handle illegal immigrant crime.

“I know that the governor likes to say that we’re not a sanctuary state,” Crank said. “The problem is we are, and he is the one who signed bills into law to make it so.”

The Venezuelan Tren de Aragua Gang

The Venezuelan Tren de Aragua was originally a prison gang, but it has “grown into a transnational criminal organization led by Hector Guerrero Flores, also known as ‘Niño Guerrero,’” according to a State Department release offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest and/or conviction. Guerrero spent years incarcerated at the Tocorón Prison in Venezuela’s Aragua State. There, he extorted prison inmates and bribed guards to get control of the prison “as well as the control of gold mines in Bolivar State, drug corridors on the Caribbean coast, as well as control of some of the clandestine border crossings between Venezuela and Columbia,” the release described.

As of November 2024, the TdA has footholds in at least 16 states in the US, including California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin, with a growing presence in Montana, DC, Wyoming, and Virginia. However, it is in Colorado where the violent gang appears to have the largest stronghold.

During the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump and JD Vance spoke out about the TdA and its crimes committed in Colorado, bringing national attention – and criticism – to the issue. After becoming commander-in-chief, Trump designated the Tren de Aragua as a terrorist group. More recently, he invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to continue deporting illegal aliens, especially those from Venezuela; however, that is being challenged in the courts.

The current law on deporting gang members says they can be removed after going through an immigration court. “The Alien Enemies Act bypasses such due process laws and lets the president detain and deport people from a ‘hostile nation or government’ without a hearing when the US is either at war with that country or has ‘perpetrated, attempted, or threatened’ an invasion or raid legally called a ‘predatory incursion’ against the US,” explained PolitiFact.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a March 19 briefing that the Tren de Aragua was sent to the US by the Venezuelan government. “A predatory incursion is absolutely what has happened with Tren de Aragua, they have been sent here by the hostile Maduro regime in Venezuela.”

“Anybody that thinks it’s a good idea to open up the border to adversaries around the world and then not even know who they are coming into our communities, it makes no sense,” DEA Acting Administrator Maltz said, adding, “People in this state [Colorado] have allowed illegal violent criminals in here at record levels.”

Although state officials claim to be working with federal agencies, critics argue that isn’t the case. On March 18, for example, Joel Jose Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 32, of Mexico, and Geilond Vido-Romero, 24, of Venezuela, escaped a detention center during a power outage in Aurora, Colorado. “Local authorities were notified immediately and declined to assist with the search,” a spokesperson for ICE said in a statement.

However, the Aurora Police Public Information Officer Joe Moylan said they weren’t notified until two hours after the illegals were reported missing: “This was a cold event from the time we were notified about it,” he said in a statement. As of the time of this writing, the two illegal migrants had not yet been captured.

Maltz promised to go after TdA gang members and deport them, despite Colorado’s sanctuary policies, but complained about those who don’t support Trump’s immigration policies. “Why don’t you thank law enforcement instead of being ‘Monday morning quarterbacks’ sitting at home and being critics?” he asked. “Why don’t you ask the politicians in the state of Colorado why they are not uniting, why they are fighting the force of good that’s after evil?”

He finished with a promise: “The team of the DEA, working with their partners from FBI, ATF, HIS, ICE ERO and our state and local counterparts, it’s a team that takes public safety and national security serious and they’ve already proven what they can do,” he said. “So they [TdA] better go and find another state because they are not welcome here in Colorado.”