In a recent coordinated raid in Colorado, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) arrested hundreds of people in an effort to apprehend a Venezuelan gang that is becoming more and more powerful in the US.
Nearly 50 people were arrested in the early-morning raid at a makeshift nightclub just outside of Denver, according to reports from the DEA’s Rocky Mountain division.
The “invite-only” event was associated with the Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang, a criminal group that started in Venezuela and has recently spread throughout the Western Hemisphere.
The DEA posted a video of the raid on social media platform X, showing it taking place in Adams County, Colorado. The video showed a bus carrying around 50 people from the nightclub—whom the police referred to as “illegal aliens.”
After that, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel arrested these people. Along with the arrests, the operation resulted in the seizure of a huge amount of cash, firearms, and drugs, which dealt a serious blow to the gang’s operations in the area.
The DEA was not the only agency involved in the operation. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, and other law enforcement organizations were also involved.
Months of research into the TDA gang’s operations, whose numbers have increased dramatically in American cities, especially the Denver region, led to the concerted attempt.
The Tren de Aragua gang began as a prison-based group in Venezuela’s Aragua province, but it has quickly spread throughout Latin America and the United States.
The group has been connected to a number of illicit activities, including as smuggling people, extortion, and drug trafficking. In 2024, the Biden administration designated the group as a transnational criminal organization in recognition of its growing criminal activities and influence.
This designation permits more stringent law enforcement actions to break up the organization’s networks in the United States and overseas.
This raid has garnered a lot of attention, especially considering that it happened just days after President Trump began his immigration crackdown.
After video footage of armed men in an apartment complex shortly before a shooting incident was made public, Trump recently traveled to Aurora, Colorado, where gang-related violence tensions were high.
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The operations against the TDA gang are especially pertinent in the context of national political discourse because of the growing worries about gang violence and its connections to immigration.
An important milestone in the ongoing fight against transnational crime groups operating inside U.S. borders has been reached with the arrests in Colorado.
Law enforcement wants to limit the gang’s power and lessen the growth of illicit activities linked to it through ongoing investigations and collaboration between federal and local authorities.
