DEA: Dozens arrested in Colorado raid targeting Venezuela gang
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) arrested dozens of people in Colorado in a raid that targeted a Venezuelan gang.
The Rocky Mountain arm of the DEA posted on the social platform X that nearly 50 people were arrested at a “makeshift nightclub” outside of Denver.
The party was “invite-only” and was connected to the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, the DEA said.
Video shared online by the Rocky Mountain division showed a bus taking away “nearly 50 illegal aliens” from the nightclub in Adams County. They were taken into custody by Denver’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch.
The DEA said drugs, weapons and cash were seized in the raid.
DEA agents, along with officers from the Homeland Security Investigations, ICE and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, participated in the raid early Sunday morning.
TdA originated as a prison gang in Aragua, Venezuela, but has “quickly expanded” in the Western Hemisphere recently. The Biden administration deemed it a transnational criminal organization last year.
The arrests were part of a months-long investigation into the gang’s activity in the city, Denver7 reported.
The raid comes just days after President Trump began his crackdown on immigration.
The gang became a flash point of the election, with Trump visiting Aurora, Colo., after video shared online showed a group of armed men at an apartment complex shortly before someone was shot.