Shocking video shows men with ties to Venezuelan gang breaking into Colorado apartment complex

AURORA, Colo. (TND) — Police in the state of Colorado have described shocking footage showing armed men linked to a violent Venezuelan street gang as an “isolated incident.”

The incident was captured on surveillance video and attributed to Edward Romero, a former resident of an apartment building.

Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky said she had heard numerous complaints from residents about men “roaming the complex heavily armed. They patrol there. They control who comes in and who goes out, they go door to door. They have entered many complexes. They have thrown people out,” she said in an interview with The National Desk on Thursday.

Jurinsky blamed the neighboring city of Denver for its asylum policy, which provides services for illegal immigrants, the vast majority of whom are not criminals but are there looking for work.

The men in the video are said to have links to the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which has been classified as a “transnational criminal organization” by the US Treasury Department.

At a hearing in April, FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers, “We are definitely going after this particular gang – the TDA, as we call it – whether it's their drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, um, you know, different kinds of violent crimes, different kinds of human trafficking and smuggling, even things like organized shoplifting.”

Four Venezuelan migrants linked to the same gang were just charged in connection with a June 24 jewelry store robbery in Denver.

Two other people are believed to have been involved in the attack on New York police officers in Times Square in January, and the suspect in Laken Riley's murder also has connections.

Venezuela and some other countries do not have diplomatic relations with the United States, which means that information about migration background is not shared.

The former acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the Biden administration's recent policies are endangering the country

“We are literally encountering people from Venezuela and letting them in. And here's the kicker: We have no way of checking their criminal background or seeing if they are part of a Venezuelan gang. And yet we are releasing them into the United States.”