How an empty apartment complex in Colorado became a national battleground over immigration

(CNN) — 1568 Nome Street sits empty these days, with windows and doors boarded up and signs warning of danger posted outside. No one lives here anymore – the city of Aurora, Colorado, evicted several hundred tenants and shuttered the apartment complex last month, citing numerous code violations. But presidential candidate Donald Trump keeps bringing it up.

“Look at Aurora, in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently,” the former president said in a debate on Tuesday night, pointing to the city as a harbinger of what unchecked migration could bring to towns across America.   
 
Just a few days earlier, at a rally on Saturday, Trump had claimed without evidence that Venezuelan gangs were taking over swathes of Colorado – and hinted at bloodshed to come. “You know, getting them out will be a bloody story,” he said.

But what exactly is happening in Aurora? For weeks, rumors have been circulating that the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been running amok in the city and terrorizing a handful of apartment buildings, including the complex at 1568 Nome Street.

One of the condemned building’s owners told CNN that it and other buildings he owns were taken over by Tren de Aragua – a claim amplified by some local Republican officials and political candidates. He did not want his name used because of negative publicity surrounding the property. Viral videos have also purported to prove it; the footage, unverified by CNN, appears to show armed men walking down hallways, in one case kicking open a door, followed by several women and small children.

But Aurora police say gang influence is “isolated,” and the city of Aurora has countered that the real problem has been abusive housing conditions – apartments often had no heat or running water and were plagued by pests and mold. One of the now-evicted tenants has also launched a class action lawsuit to claim back rent for the months when the building was allegedly uninhabitable. The suit details over a year of code enforcement proceedings brought by the city against the building’s owners, along with a “litany of complaints” filed by residents with the city. Residents said there were bed bugs and black mold at the property along with a lack of heat and hot water, according to the legal filing.

It’s true that many of those living in the complex are recent immigrants from Venezuela, housing advocates who work with the tenants told CNN. But was 1568 Nome Street condemned because it was being terrorized by a Venezuelan gang – or, instead, by cockroaches, bedbugs and other problems unleashed by a negligent landlord on vulnerable tenants?

What is Tren de Aragua?

Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang that originated in a Venezuela prison, is “the most disruptive criminal organization operating nowadays in Latin America,” retired general Óscar Naranjo, a former vice president of Colombia and chief of the Colombian National Police, told CNN earlier this summer.

Local and federal US officials have told CNN that the gang, referred to by some as TdA, is now operating in the US. In July, the Treasury Department sanctioned the group as a transnational criminal organization, warning that the gang is involved in human trafficking and debt bondage. The State Department has also offered up to $12 million for information leading to the arrest of its leaders.

Terrorizing an apartment complex of Venezuelan migrants would not be far from the group’s established modus operandi, according to witnesses interviewed by CNN. In Bogota, Colombia, Tren de Aragua has a track record of taking over low-income buildings and turning them into bases of operation, they say.

One incident fueling speculation about the gang’s grip in Aurora: Local police announced this summer that they had arrested a man known as “Cookie” or “Galleta,” whom they linked to a July 28 shooting outside of 1568 Nome Street and described the man as “a documented member of Tren de Aragua.”

Police have firmly rejected theories that the gang has taken over any buildings in the city, but say they’re keeping a close watch for crimes allegedly committed by Tren de Aragua – even creating a special interagency task force “to specifically address concerns” about it.

“Based on our initial investigative work, we believe reports of TdA influence in Aurora are isolated, police said in an August 28 statement.

On Wednesday, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman and Council Member Danielle Jurinsky issued a joint statement acknowledging Trump’s mention of their city in the presidential debate.

“TdA has not ‘taken over’ the city. The overstated claims fueled by social media and through select news organizations are simply not true. Again, TdA’s presence in Aurora is limited to specific properties, all of which the city has been addressing in various ways for months,” they said.

They did announce that Aurora police had linked 10 people across the city to Tren de Aragua, and that there had been issues with certain apartment buildings.

“In line with these arrests, we can also now confirm that criminal activity, including TdA issues, had significantly affected those properties.”

What tenants say

Several people who lived and worked at 1568 Nome Street told CNN say they were unaware of organized crime there – but that it ultimately was the state of the building that made it unlivable.  
 
Shayra Caez, 44, told CNN that she worked at the property as a cleaner and that she never saw armed people in the buildings like those shown in the videos circulating online. “I never seen these people like going up and down with guns or stuff like that,” she said.

“Everybody started talking about gangs and stuff like that” after a shooting incident in the building earlier in the year, Caez said.

Asked about the evictions, though, she said, “To be really honest with you, I think it was more because of the code violations,” noting that basic issues with the building went unsolved for years – including a mold infestation that was painted over and workers tasked with fixing issues never being paid. “No hot water, no heater … if people came to fix the boilers, for example, he never paid them,” she said.

The class action lawsuit filed against the building’s owners last month also speculates that one of the reasons the city deemed the building unfit for habitation was the owners’ decision to cease paying the water bill in July.

The building owner interviewed by CNN has blamed gang activity for making it impossible to keep up the property, and city figures provided to CNN show crime incidents investigated by police more than doubled at the complex between 2022 and 2023, with dozens more crimes reported through the end of July this year. However, a spokesperson for the city told CNN that the condemnation of 1568 Nome Street ultimately came down to its owner’s failures – and slammed “alternative narratives” as a fabrication.

“The city has documented substantial, longstanding, unresolved code violations and other poor conditions at the property for the last several years … Despite the city’s exhaustive efforts to work with the property owners and their property management group, CBZ Management, they have failed to address the violations and have been uncooperative,” city communications deputy director Ryan Luby told CNN last month.

Luby and several tenants have shared with CNN documentation of rodent infestations, uncollected trash, water leaks, and broken windows.

“No one at the city is denying or ignoring the possibility of organized crime impacts at the 1568 Nome St. property or any other. However, what is critically important for the public and the property owners to understand is that the latest concerns they raise about possible gang activity on their property at 1568 Nome St. are immaterial and irrelevant to the longstanding code violations and the poor property conditions” that triggered the building’s closure,” Luby added.

CNN has reached out to CBZ Management for comment. Asked about these accusations, the building owner interviewed by CNN maintained that gangs are “100%” causing the problems in the building.

Some locals now also place blame on the city for allowing the matter to spiral to national attention. In a September 1 op-ed, Colorado Sentinel editor Dave Perry called on city officials to “counter Venezuelan gang hysteria,” noting that northwest Aurora has a history of crime and other issues that long preceded the latest wave of migration.

“This grisly attempt at terrorizing Aurora residents, in hopes of swaying voters to back anti-immigrant candidates and causes, must stop,” he wrote.

Fear is already percolating through the city, with Venezuelan migrants at the receiving end, several people in Aurora told CNN. One young Venezuelan man named Danilo, who migrated to the US last year, told CNN that he hadn’t noticed any gang activity in his building but has recently struggled to find steady work due to a stigma toward his nationality.

“I have tried to look for a job here. They don’t want us because we are from Venezuela,” the 30-year-old said. “I have gone to restaurants where they would ask: ‘Where are you from?’ I would answer: ‘I am from Venezuela,’ and they’d say, ‘No. We only accept Mexicans or those who are born here.’”

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