Federal officials say they arrested Cubans, Venezuelans, and Italians at TdA-organized party in Colorado
More details emerged Monday about a federal raid on a pop-up nightclub early Sunday morning near Denver, that was aimed at disrupting the operations of the Venezuelan Tren De Aragua gang in Colorado.
The Drug Enforcement Administration said Monday that it took 40 undocumented people into custody at the early morning party near West 66th Avenue and North Federal Boulevard in unincorporated Adams County.
"If you're asking me if we got 'em all -- no," said Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEA's Rocky Mountain Field Division.
"I think there's still more folks associated with TdA here but they know we're coming," he warned.
The Drug Enforcement Administration said it had been tracking TdA gang members in Colorado since last summer before executing a search warrant Sunday morning. Federal agents say there were 49 people in the building at the time of the raid, and 40 of them are in the U.S. illegally.
Pullen said agents seized four pistols and small amounts of cocaine and crack cocaine.
He said the party was "invitation only" for TdA members and others associated with the violent gang. Pullen said the majority of the people taken into custody were from Venezuela, but others were from El Salvador, Mexico, Honduras, Cuba, and Italy.
"A lot of those people had criminal records in the U.S. and in their home countries as well," said Pullen. He referred questions about the identity of those detained to the U.S. Attorney's Office, which declined to provide any information.
In a separate and unrelated DEA action on Monday, agents said they arrested two more undocumented people in southeast Denver when they executed a search warrant at an apartment building. In that case, Pullen said his agents confiscated 130,000 fentanyl pills along with heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine.
