PORTLAND, OR – During a news conference on Friday, Portland Police Chief Bob Day told reporters that the two people shot by federal agents on Thursday are connected to the Venezuelan gang known at Tren de Aragua. “What I can say is there is an association with the two folks yesterday and TDA,” he said.
At the same time, Chief Day insisted that “this in no way draws a throughline to the actions and behaviors that occurred (on Thursday).”
His comments came within hours of a social media post by the Department of Homeland Security which identified the man and woman shot as Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras and referred to both as “suspected Tren de Aragua gang associates.”
A federal investigation is underway, and Day said his officers are providing support to the FBI, but also said PPB is not conducting an investigation of its own.
Portland Police say officers responded to the shooting outside of a medical clinic, and six minutes later, they got a call from a man who had been shot. Officers found a man and a woman in a car with gunshot wounds. Officers applied tourniquets until medics arrived and the two people were taken to a hospital. Homeland Security claims agents were making a traffic stop on the suspected gang members when the driver tried to run down an agent and shots were fired.
In reaction to the shooting, Governor Tina Kotek said Homeland Security is destroying public trust in the federal government. The governor made the comment Thursday at news conference featuring Chief Day, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, and other regional officials. Kotek insisted when the President endorses actions that tear families apart it fosters an environment of lawlessness and recklessness. Kotek also said there must be a full and transparent investigation that involves Portland Police and the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.
A newly unsealed U.S. Justice Department indictment accuses captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of running a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S. with thousands of tons of cocaine.The arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a stunning military operation early Saturday in Venezuela sets the stage for a major test for U.S. prosecutors as they seek to secure a conviction in a New York courtroom against the longtime leader of the oil-rich South American nation.Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that Maduro and Flores “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”Here’s a look at the accusations against Maduro and the charges he faces:Drug and weapons chargesMaduro is charged alongside his wife, his son and three others. Maduro is indicted on four counts: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.Maduro is facing the same charges as in an earlier indictment brought against him in Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency. The new indictment unsealed Saturday, which adds charges against Flores, was filed under seal in the Southern District of New York just before Christmas.Maduro is due to make his first appearance Monday in federal court in Manhattan. A video posted Saturday night on social media by a White House account showed Maduro, smiling, as he was escorted through a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in New York by two federal agents grasping his arms. He was expected to be detained while awaiting trial at a federal jail in Brooklyn.’Cocaine-fueled corruption’ flourishedThe indictment accuses Maduro of partnering with “some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world” to allow for the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S.Authorities allege powerful and violent drug-trafficking organizations, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Tren de Aragua gang, worked directly with the Venezuelan government and then sent profits to high-ranking officials who helped and protected them in exchange.But a U.S. intelligence assessment published in April, which drew on input from the 18 agencies that comprise the intelligence community, found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.Maduro allowed “cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members,” the indictment alleges.U.S. authorities allege that Maduro and his family “provided law enforcement cover and logistical support” to cartels moving drugs throughout the region, resulting in as much as 250 tons of cocaine trafficked through Venezuela annually by 2020, according to the indictment.Drugs were moved on go-fast vessels, fishing boats and container ships or on planes from clandestine airstrips, the indictment says.”This cycle of narcotics-based corruption lines the pockets of Venezuelan officials and their families while also benefiting violent narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and who help produce, protect, and transport tons of cocaine to the United States,” the indictment says.Successive U.S. administrations have warned about Venezuela’s role as a transit point for cocaine and a haven for criminal gangs, terrorist groups and drug-smuggling leftist rebels from neighboring Colombia. While reliable data is hard to ascertain, the vast majority of cocaine departs South America from Colombia and Ecuador, making its way northward through the eastern Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean.Allegations of kidnappings and murders orderedThe U.S. accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders “against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation.” That includes the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas, according to the indictment.Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office. In a corrupt deal, the drug trafficker then agreed to pay a monthly bribe to the director of the anti-drug office as well as about $100,000 for each cocaine-carrying flight “to ensure the flight’s safe passage.” Some of that money then went to Maduro’s wife, the indictment says.Nephews of Maduro’s wife were heard during recorded meetings with confidential U.S. government sources in 2015 agreeing to send “multi-hundred-kilogram cocaine shipments” from Maduro’s “presidential hanger” at a Venezuelan airport. The nephews during the recorded meetings explained “that they were at ‘war’ with the United States,” the indictment alleges. They were both sentenced in 2017 to 18 years in prison for conspiring to send tons of cocaine into the U.S. before being released in 2022 as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for seven imprisoned Americans.Rubio calls operation a ‘law enforcement function’During a news conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cast the military raid that captured Maduro and his wife as an action carried out on behalf of the Department of Justice. Caine said the operation was made “at the request of the Justice Department.”Rubio, as he responded to a question about whether Congress had been notified, said the U.S. raid to get the couple was “basically a law enforcement function,” adding that it was an instance in which the “Department of War supported the Department of Justice.” He called Maduro “a fugitive of American justice with a $50 million reward” over his head.
A newly unsealed U.S. Justice Department indictment accuses captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of running a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S. with thousands of tons of cocaine.
The arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a stunning military operation early Saturday in Venezuela sets the stage for a major test for U.S. prosecutors as they seek to secure a conviction in a New York courtroom against the longtime leader of the oil-rich South American nation.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that Maduro and Flores “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
Here’s a look at the accusations against Maduro and the charges he faces:
Drug and weapons charges
Maduro is charged alongside his wife, his son and three others. Maduro is indicted on four counts: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
Maduro is facing the same charges as in an earlier indictment brought against him in Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency. The new indictment unsealed Saturday, which adds charges against Flores, was filed under seal in the Southern District of New York just before Christmas.
Maduro is due to make his first appearance Monday in federal court in Manhattan. A video posted Saturday night on social media by a White House account showed Maduro, smiling, as he was escorted through a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in New York by two federal agents grasping his arms. He was expected to be detained while awaiting trial at a federal jail in Brooklyn.
‘Cocaine-fueled corruption’ flourished
The indictment accuses Maduro of partnering with “some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world” to allow for the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S.
Authorities allege powerful and violent drug-trafficking organizations, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Tren de Aragua gang, worked directly with the Venezuelan government and then sent profits to high-ranking officials who helped and protected them in exchange.
But a U.S. intelligence assessment published in April, which drew on input from the 18 agencies that comprise the intelligence community, found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.
Maduro allowed “cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members,” the indictment alleges.
U.S. authorities allege that Maduro and his family “provided law enforcement cover and logistical support” to cartels moving drugs throughout the region, resulting in as much as 250 tons of cocaine trafficked through Venezuela annually by 2020, according to the indictment.
Drugs were moved on go-fast vessels, fishing boats and container ships or on planes from clandestine airstrips, the indictment says.
“This cycle of narcotics-based corruption lines the pockets of Venezuelan officials and their families while also benefiting violent narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and who help produce, protect, and transport tons of cocaine to the United States,” the indictment says.
Successive U.S. administrations have warned about Venezuela’s role as a transit point for cocaine and a haven for criminal gangs, terrorist groups and drug-smuggling leftist rebels from neighboring Colombia. While reliable data is hard to ascertain, the vast majority of cocaine departs South America from Colombia and Ecuador, making its way northward through the eastern Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean.
Allegations of kidnappings and murders ordered
The U.S. accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders “against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation.” That includes the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas, according to the indictment.
Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office. In a corrupt deal, the drug trafficker then agreed to pay a monthly bribe to the director of the anti-drug office as well as about $100,000 for each cocaine-carrying flight “to ensure the flight’s safe passage.” Some of that money then went to Maduro’s wife, the indictment says.
Nephews of Maduro’s wife were heard during recorded meetings with confidential U.S. government sources in 2015 agreeing to send “multi-hundred-kilogram cocaine shipments” from Maduro’s “presidential hanger” at a Venezuelan airport. The nephews during the recorded meetings explained “that they were at ‘war’ with the United States,” the indictment alleges. They were both sentenced in 2017 to 18 years in prison for conspiring to send tons of cocaine into the U.S. before being released in 2022 as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for seven imprisoned Americans.
Rubio calls operation a ‘law enforcement function’
During a news conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cast the military raid that captured Maduro and his wife as an action carried out on behalf of the Department of Justice. Caine said the operation was made “at the request of the Justice Department.”
Rubio, as he responded to a question about whether Congress had been notified, said the U.S. raid to get the couple was “basically a law enforcement function,” adding that it was an instance in which the “Department of War supported the Department of Justice.” He called Maduro “a fugitive of American justice with a $50 million reward” over his head.
Men who were part of the group of Venezuelan migrants that the United States government transferred earlier this year to a prison in El Salvador demanded justice on Friday, days after a federal judge in Washington ruled that the Trump administration must give them legal due process.The men told reporters in Venezuela’s capital that they hope legal organizations can push their claims in court. Their press conference was organized by Venezuela’s government, which had previously said it had retained legal services for the immigrants.On Monday, a federal judge ordered the U.S. government to give legal due process to the 252 Venezuelan men, either by providing court hearings or returning them to the U.S. The ruling opens a path for the men to challenge the Trump administration’s allegation that they are members of the Tren de Aragua gang and subject to removal under an 18th century wartime law.The men have repeatedly said they were physically and psychologically tortured while at the notorious Salvadoran prison.”Today, we are here to demand justice before the world for the human rights violations committed against each of us, and to ask for help from international organizations to assist us in our defense so that our human rights are respected and not violated again,” Andry Blanco told reporters in Caracas, where roughly two dozen of the migrants gathered Friday.Some of the men shared the daily struggles they now face — including fear of leaving their home or encountering law enforcement — as a consequence of what they said were brutal abuses while in prison. The men did not specify what justice should look like in their case, but not all are interested in returning to the U.S.”I don’t trust them,” Nolberto Aguilar said of the U.S. government.The men were flown to El Salvador in March. They were sent to their home country in July as part of a prisoner swap between the Trump administration and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.Camilla Fabri, Venezuelan vice minister of foreign affairs for international communications, said Maduro’s government is working with a bar association in the U.S. and “all human rights organizations to prepare a major lawsuit against Trump and the United States government, so that they truly acknowledge all the crimes they have committed against” the men.
Men who were part of the group of Venezuelan migrants that the United States government transferred earlier this year to a prison in El Salvador demanded justice on Friday, days after a federal judge in Washington ruled that the Trump administration must give them legal due process.
The men told reporters in Venezuela’s capital that they hope legal organizations can push their claims in court. Their press conference was organized by Venezuela’s government, which had previously said it had retained legal services for the immigrants.
On Monday, a federal judge ordered the U.S. government to give legal due process to the 252 Venezuelan men, either by providing court hearings or returning them to the U.S. The ruling opens a path for the men to challenge the Trump administration’s allegation that they are members of the Tren de Aragua gang and subject to removal under an 18th century wartime law.
The men have repeatedly said they were physically and psychologically tortured while at the notorious Salvadoran prison.
“Today, we are here to demand justice before the world for the human rights violations committed against each of us, and to ask for help from international organizations to assist us in our defense so that our human rights are respected and not violated again,” Andry Blanco told reporters in Caracas, where roughly two dozen of the migrants gathered Friday.
Some of the men shared the daily struggles they now face — including fear of leaving their home or encountering law enforcement — as a consequence of what they said were brutal abuses while in prison. The men did not specify what justice should look like in their case, but not all are interested in returning to the U.S.
“I don’t trust them,” Nolberto Aguilar said of the U.S. government.
The men were flown to El Salvador in March. They were sent to their home country in July as part of a prisoner swap between the Trump administration and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Camilla Fabri, Venezuelan vice minister of foreign affairs for international communications, said Maduro’s government is working with a bar association in the U.S. and “all human rights organizations to prepare a major lawsuit against Trump and the United States government, so that they truly acknowledge all the crimes they have committed against” the men.
Although President Donald Trump’s administration has been openly hostile to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for months, there’s no sign Maduro has given up power as a result.
Still, Trump shared a screenshot of an X post Dec. 1 that read, “BREAKING: Venezuelan President (Maduro) publicly surrendered to President Trump!!”
Trump’s post included video of Maduro giving a speech along with the caption, “BREAKING: Venezuelan President just publicly surrendered to President Trump! Maduro has now turned in state evidence against the Biden admin & is releasing proof that Biden asked the Venezuelan government to ship Tren de Aragua dr*g gangs into the US.”
Trump’s administration has pressured the Venezuelan government with more than 20 military strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean against what he describes as drug boats from Venezuela and Colombia. He has also threatened to attack drug cartels on land and positioned the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, among an armada of U.S. ships in the waters off Venezuela.
But Maduro didn’t recently publicly surrender or turn in state evidence showing proof that Biden was involved with members of the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua prison gang.
The video Trump shared is from a February speech Maduro gave during a Venezuelan government event. Translated from Spanish, the name of the event was a “high-level workshop of the people’s government.”
We also translated the part of Maduro’s speech that Trump shared. In it, Maduro says: “I respectfully tell President Donald Trump to request FBI and DEA reports from the last four years, specifically from their offices in Colombia, so that you, President Trump, can see who financed, who moved, who directed the infamous Tren de Aragua, who brought it to Colombia, and who brought it to the United States.”
Maduro said his administration “dismembered” and eliminated Tren de Aragua, and he accused the group of operating in Colombia and having “deep ties” to the Biden administration.
“If anything can be said about the terrorism of the Tren de Aragua — the now-extinct Tren de Aragua — it is that they wanted to attack the country’s cities with terrorism, and we prevented it with intelligence and action,” Maduro said. “President Trump, request those reports so that you can see — I say this sincerely and respectfully — the truth about the infamous Tren de Aragua. Our migrants are not criminals. They are not bad people, they were people who migrated as a result of the sanctions, they are good people, hardworking people.”
Although Maduro alleged in his speech that the Biden administration was involved with Tren de Aragua, he provided no evidence, contrary to what Trump’s post said.
Venezuelan investigative journalist Ronna Risquez, who published a book about Tren de Aragua, said in a March 18 interview that she found no evidence that the Venezuelan government had sent Tren de Aragua members to the U.S.
We found no credible news reports saying that Maduro “publicly surrendered.” Rather, news coverage has shown Maduro energetically engaging with his constituents. He made news for publicly dancing before a Caracas crowd to music that featured a remix of his past speeches in which he said, “No war, yes peace.”
On Dec. 1, Maduro replayed the song and said the U.S. hasn’t been able to “take us down with their psychological terrorism.”
On Dec. 2, he shared a video that showed him ordering Venezuelans to “work, and work more, and to party.”
And on Dec. 3, Maduro posted a TikTok video showcasing an aerospace exhibition.
We rate Trump’s claim that the February video of the Venezuelan president shows him surrendering Pants on Fire!
The U.S. military carried out a follow-up strike on a suspected drug vessel operating in the Caribbean on Sept. 2 after an initial attack did not kill everyone on board, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.That September strike was the first in what became a regular series of attacks on alleged drug boats.While the first strike appeared to disable the boat and cause deaths, the military assessed there were survivors, according to the sources. The second attack killed the remaining crew on board, bringing the total death toll to 11, and sunk the ship.Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had ordered the military prior to the operation to ensure the strike killed everyone on board, but it’s not clear if he knew there were survivors prior to the second strike, one of the sources said.The strike and deaths were announced by President Donald Trump on the day of the attacks, but the administration has never publicly acknowledged killing survivors.Trump said on Thursday that action on land to stop suspected drug trafficking networks in Venezuela could “start very soon,” amid ongoing questions about the legality of the U.S. military’s campaign around Latin America. Officials have acknowledged not knowing the identities of everyone on board the boats before they are struck, CNN has reported.“I have been alarmed by the number of vessels that this administration has taken out without a single consultation of Congress,” Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean told CNN this week. “Just last week, I took a look in a SCIF , because I’m a member of foreign affairs, at some documents around the sinking of these vessels and the murder of the people on those boats. Nowhere in there was there evidence of what was going on.”People briefed on the “double-tap” strike, said they were concerned that it could violate the law of armed conflict, which prohibits the execution of an enemy combatant who is “hors de combat,” or taken out of the fight due to injury or surrender.“They’re breaking the law either way,” said Sarah Harrison, a former associate general counsel at the Pentagon who now serves as a senior analyst at the Crisis Group think tank. “They’re killing civilians in the first place, and then if you assume they’re combatants, it’s also unlawful — under the law of armed conflict, if somebody is ‘hors de combat’ and no longer able to fight, then they have to be treated humanely.”Details of the strikes were first reported by The Intercept and the Washington Post.Hegseth in a social media post Friday continued to defend the strikes on alleged drug boats, writing, “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”“Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” Hegseth said.The U.S. military was aware that there were survivors in the water following the first strike on Sept. 2 and carried out another to both sink the vessel and kill the remaining crew, the sources said. Pentagon officials told lawmakers in briefings afterward that the second strike was done to sink the boat so it would not pose a threat to navigation, the sources said.The U.S. military has hit boats multiple times in several instances to sink them, the sources said, but the Sept. 2 strike is the only known instance where the military deliberately killed survivors.It is not clear why the survivors were not picked up, as they were following another strike in the Caribbean in October. In that instance, the Trump administration rescued two survivors and repatriated them to their home countries.In a post announcing the Sept. 2 strike on Truth Social, President Donald Trump said that the U.S. military had conducted “a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.”The administration has tried to legally justify its strikes on the boats by claiming they are carrying individuals linked to roughly two dozen drug cartels engaged in an armed conflict with the U.S. The White House has said repeatedly that the administration’s actions “comply fully with the Law of Armed Conflict,” the area of international law that is designed to prevent attacks on civilians.Many legal experts, however, say the suspected drug traffickers are civilians, not combatants, and that the strikes therefore amount to extrajudicial killings.Before the U.S. military began blowing up boats in September, countering illicit drug trafficking was handled by law enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard, and cartel members and drug smugglers were treated as criminals with due process rights.But in a classified legal opinion produced over the summer, the Justice Department argued that the president is legally allowed to authorize lethal strikes against 24 cartels and criminal organizations in self-defense, because the groups pose an imminent threat to Americans, CNN has reported.That argument has potentially been undercut by the behavior of the suspected traffickers who have been targeted: in at least one instance, a boat had turned around and was moving away from the U.S. before being struck. Survivors of the strike on Sept. 2 also posed no imminent threat, since they were effectively incapacitated, the sources briefed on the strikes and Harrison noted.Senior U.S. defense officials and U.S. allies have expressed skepticism of the legality of the military campaign. The commander of U.S. Southern Command, Adm. Alvin Holsey, offered to leave his post during a tense meeting last month with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after he raised questions about the legality of the strikes, CNN has reported. Holsey will leave his post in December, just one year into his tenure as the SOUTHCOM chief.Lawyers specializing in international law within DoD’s Office of General Counsel have also raised concerns about the legality of the strikes. Multiple current and former uniformed lawyers told CNN that the strikes do not appear lawful.The United Kingdom is also no longer sharing intelligence with the U.S. about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in U.S. military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, CNN has reported.
The U.S. military carried out a follow–up strike on a suspected drug vessel operating in the Caribbean on Sept. 2 after an initial attack did not kill everyone on board, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
That September strike was the first in what became a regular series of attacks on alleged drug boats.
While the first strike appeared to disable the boat and cause deaths, the military assessed there were survivors, according to the sources. The second attack killed the remaining crew on board, bringing the total death toll to 11, and sunk the ship.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had ordered the military prior to the operation to ensure the strike killed everyone on board, but it’s not clear if he knew there were survivors prior to the second strike, one of the sources said.
The strike and deaths were announced by President Donald Trump on the day of the attacks, but the administration has never publicly acknowledged killing survivors.
Trump said on Thursday that action on land to stop suspected drug trafficking networks in Venezuela could “start very soon,” amid ongoing questions about the legality of the U.S. military’s campaign around Latin America. Officials have acknowledged not knowing the identities of everyone on board the boats before they are struck, CNN has reported.
“I have been alarmed by the number of vessels that this administration has taken out without a single consultation of Congress,” Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean told CNN this week. “Just last week, I took a look in a SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility], because I’m a member of foreign affairs, at some documents around the sinking of these vessels and the murder of the people on those boats. Nowhere in there was there evidence of what was going on.”
People briefed on the “double-tap” strike, said they were concerned that it could violate the law of armed conflict, which prohibits the execution of an enemy combatant who is “hors de combat,” or taken out of the fight due to injury or surrender.
“They’re breaking the law either way,” said Sarah Harrison, a former associate general counsel at the Pentagon who now serves as a senior analyst at the Crisis Group think tank. “They’re killing civilians in the first place, and then if you assume they’re combatants, it’s also unlawful — under the law of armed conflict, if somebody is ‘hors de combat’ and no longer able to fight, then they have to be treated humanely.”
Hegseth in a social media post Friday continued to defend the strikes on alleged drug boats, writing, “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”
“Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” Hegseth said.
The U.S. military was aware that there were survivors in the water following the first strike on Sept. 2 and carried out another to both sink the vessel and kill the remaining crew, the sources said. Pentagon officials told lawmakers in briefings afterward that the second strike was done to sink the boat so it would not pose a threat to navigation, the sources said.
The U.S. military has hit boats multiple times in several instances to sink them, the sources said, but the Sept. 2 strike is the only known instance where the military deliberately killed survivors.
It is not clear why the survivors were not picked up, as they were following another strike in the Caribbean in October. In that instance, the Trump administration rescued two survivors and repatriated them to their home countries.
In a post announcing the Sept. 2 strike on Truth Social, President Donald Trump said that the U.S. military had conducted “a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.”
The administration has tried to legally justify its strikes on the boats by claiming they are carrying individuals linked to roughly two dozen drug cartels engaged in an armed conflict with the U.S. The White House has said repeatedly that the administration’s actions “comply fully with the Law of Armed Conflict,” the area of international law that is designed to prevent attacks on civilians.
Many legal experts, however, say the suspected drug traffickers are civilians, not combatants, and that the strikes therefore amount to extrajudicial killings.
Before the U.S. military began blowing up boats in September, countering illicit drug trafficking was handled by law enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard, and cartel members and drug smugglers were treated as criminals with due process rights.
But in a classified legal opinion produced over the summer, the Justice Department argued that the president is legally allowed to authorize lethal strikes against 24 cartels and criminal organizations in self-defense, because the groups pose an imminent threat to Americans, CNN has reported.
That argument has potentially been undercut by the behavior of the suspected traffickers who have been targeted: in at least one instance, a boat had turned around and was moving away from the U.S. before being struck. Survivors of the strike on Sept. 2 also posed no imminent threat, since they were effectively incapacitated, the sources briefed on the strikes and Harrison noted.
Senior U.S. defense officials and U.S. allies have expressed skepticism of the legality of the military campaign. The commander of U.S. Southern Command, Adm. Alvin Holsey, offered to leave his post during a tense meeting last month with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after he raised questions about the legality of the strikes, CNN has reported. Holsey will leave his post in December, just one year into his tenure as the SOUTHCOM chief.
Lawyers specializing in international law within DoD’s Office of General Counsel have also raised concerns about the legality of the strikes. Multiple current and former uniformed lawyers told CNN that the strikes do not appear lawful.
The United Kingdom is also no longer sharing intelligence with the U.S. about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in U.S. military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, CNN has reported.
In the early days of President Trump’s second term, the U.S. appeared keen to cooperate with Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian leader. Special envoy Ric Grenell met Maduro, working with him to coordinate deportation flights to Caracas, a prisoner exchange deal and an agreement allowing Chevron to drill Venezuelan oil.
Grenell told disappointed members of Venezuela’s opposition that Trump’s domestic goals took priority over efforts to promote democracy. “We’re not interested in regime change,” Grenell told the group, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.
But Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of State, had a different vision.
In a parallel call with María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, two leaders of the opposition, Rubio affirmed U.S. support “for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela” and called González “the rightful president” of the beleaguered nation after Maduro rigged last year’s election in his favor.
Rubio, now also serving as national security advisor, has grown closer to Trump and crafted an aggressive new policy toward Maduro that has brought Venezuela and the United States to the brink of military confrontation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio whispers to President Trump during a roundtable meeting at the White House on Oct. 8, 2025.
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
I think Venezuela is feeling the heat
— President Trump
Grenell has been sidelined, two sources told The Times, as the U.S. conducts an unprecedented campaign of deadly strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats — and builds up military assets in the Caribbean. Trump said Wednesday that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in the South American nation, and that strikes on land targets could be next.
“I think Venezuela is feeling the heat,” he said.
The pressure campaign marks a major victory for Rubio, the son of Cuban emigres and an unexpected power player in the administration who has managed to sway top leaders of the isolationist MAGA movement to his lifelong effort to topple Latin America’s leftist authoritarians.
“It’s very clear that Rubio has won,” said James B. Story, who served as ambassador to Venezuela under President Biden. “The administration is applying military pressure in the hope that somebody inside of the regime renders Maduro to justice, either by exiling him, sending him to the United States or sending him to his maker.”
In a recent public message to Trump, Maduro acknowledged that Rubio is now driving White House policy: “You have to be careful because Marco Rubio wants your hands stained with blood, with South American blood, Caribbean blood, Venezuelan blood,” Maduro said.
As a senator from Florida, Rubio represented exiles from three leftist autocracies — Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — and for years he has made it his mission to weaken their governments. He says his family could not return to Cuba after Fidel Castro’s revolution seven decades ago. He has long maintained that eliminating Maduro would deal a fatal blow to Cuba, whose economy has been buoyed by billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil in the face of punishing U.S. sanctions.
In 2019, Rubio pushed Trump to back Juan Guaidó, a Venezuelan opposition leader who sought unsuccessfully to topple Maduro.
Rubio later encouraged Trump to publicly support Machado, who was barred from the ballot in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, and who last week was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy efforts. González, who ran in Machado’s place, won the election, according to vote tallies gathered by the opposition, yet Maduro declared victory.
Rubio was convinced that only military might would bring change to Venezuela, which has been plunged into crisis under Maduro’s rule, with a quarter of the population fleeing poverty, violence and political repression.
But there was a hitch. Trump has repeatedly vowed to not intervene in the politics of other nations, telling a Middle Eastern audience in May that the U.S. “would no longer be giving you lectures on how to live.”
Denouncing decades of U.S. foreign policy, Trump complained that “the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand.”
To counter that sentiment, Rubio painted Maduro in a new light that he hoped would spark interest from Trump, who has been fixated on combating immigration, illegal drugs and Latin American cartels since his first presidential campaign.
Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, right, and opposition leader María Corina Machado greet supporters during a campaign rally in Valencia before the country’s presidential election in 2024.
(Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)
Going after Maduro, Rubio argued, was not about promoting democracy or a change of governments. It was striking a drug kingpin fueling crime in American streets, an epidemic of American overdoses, and a flood of illegal migration to America’s borders.
Rubio tied Maduro to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang whose members the secretary of State says are “worse than Al Qaeda.”
“Venezuela is governed by a narco-trafficking organization that has empowered itself as a nation state,” he said during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Meanwhile, prominent members of Venezuela’s opposition pushed the same message. “Maduro is the head of a narco-terrorist structure,” Machado told Fox News last month.
Security analysts and U.S. intelligence officials suggest that the links between Maduro and Tren de Aragua are overblown.
A declassified memo by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence found no evidence of widespread cooperation between Maduro’s government and the gang. It also said Tren de Aragua does not pose a threat to the U.S.
The gang does not traffic fentanyl, and the Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that just 8% of cocaine that reaches the U.S. passes through Venezuelan territory.
Still, Rubio’s strategy appears to have worked.
In July, Trump declared that Tren de Aragua was a terrorist group led by Maduro — and then ordered the Pentagon to use military force against cartels that the U.S. government had labeled terrorists.
Trump deployed thousands of U.S. troops and a small armada of ships and warplanes to the Caribbean and has ordered strikes on five boats off the coast of Venezuela, resulting in 24 deaths. The administration says the victims were “narco-terrorists” but has provided no evidence.
Elliott Abrams, a veteran diplomat who served as special envoy to Venezuela in Trump’s first term, said he believes the White House will carry out limited strikes in Venezuela.
“I think the next step is that they’re going to hit something in Venezuela — and I don’t mean boots on the ground. That’s not Trump,” Abrams said. “It’s a strike, and then it’s over. That’s very low risk to the United States.”
He continued: “Now, would it be nice if that kind of activity spurred a colonel to lead a coup? Yeah, it would be nice. But the administration is never going to say that.”
Even if Trump refrains from a ground invasion, there are major risks.
“If it’s a war, then what is the war’s aim? Is it to overthrow Maduro? Is it more than Maduro? Is it to get a democratically elected president and a democratic regime in power?” said John Yoo, a professor of law at UC Berkeley, who served as a top legal advisor to the George W. Bush administration. “The American people will want to know what’s the end state, what’s the goal of all of this.”
“Whenever you have two militaries bristling that close together, there could be real action,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the think tank Chatham House. “Trump is trying to do this on the cheap. He’s hoping maybe he won’t have to commit. But it’s a slippery slope. This could draw the United States into a war.”
Sabatini and others added that even if the U.S. pressure drives out Maduro, what follows is far from certain.
Venezuela is dominated by a patchwork of guerrilla and paramilitary groups that have enriched themselves with gold smuggling, drug trafficking and other illicit activities. None have incentive to lay down arms.
And the country’s opposition is far from unified.
Machado, who dedicated her Nobel Prize to Trump in a clear effort to gain his support, says she is prepared to govern Venezuela. But there are others — both in exile and in Maduro’s administration — who would like to lead the country.
Machado supporter Juan Fernandez said anything would be better than maintaining the status quo.
“Some say we’re not prepared, that a transition would cause instability,” he said. “How can Maduro be the secure choice when 8 million Venezuelans have left, when there is no gasoline, political persecution and rampant inflation?”
Fernandez praised Rubio for pushing the Venezuela issue toward “an inflection point.”
What a difference, he said, to have a decision-maker in the White House with family roots in another country long oppressed by an authoritarian regime.
“He perfectly understands our situation,” Fernandez said. “And now he has one of the highest positions in the United States.”
Linthicum reported from Mexico City, Wilner from Dallas and Ceballos from Washington. Special correspondent Mery Mogollón in Caracas contributed to this report.
MEXICO CITY — To help justify a sweeping deportation campaign, an extraordinary U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and unprecedented strikes on boats allegedly trafficking drugs, President Trump has repeated a mantra: Tren de Aragua.
He insists that the street gang, which was founded about a decade ago in Venezuela, is attempting an “invasion” of the United States and threatens “the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.” Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump described the group as “an enemy of all humanity” and an arm of Venezuela’s authoritarian government.
According to experts who study the gang and Trump’s own intelligence officials, none of that is true.
While Tren de Aragua has been linked to cases of human trafficking, extortion and kidnapping and has expanded its footprint as Venezuela’s diaspora has spread throughout the Americas, there is little evidence that it poses a threat to the U.S.
“Tren de Aragua does not have the capacity to invade any country, especially the most powerful nation on Earth,” said Ronna Rísquez, a Venezuelan journalist who wrote a book about the gang. The group’s prowess, she said, had been vastly exaggerated by the Trump administration in order to rationalize the deportation of migrants, the militarization of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, and perhaps even an effort to drive Venezuela’s president from power.
“It is being instrumentalized to justify political actions,” she said of the gang. “In no way does it endanger the national security of the United States.”
Before last year, few Americans had heard of Tren de Aragua.
The group formed inside a prison in Venezuela’s Aragua state then spread as nearly 8 million Venezuelans fled poverty and political repression under the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Gang members were accused of sex trafficking, drug sales, homicides and other crimes in countries including Chile, Brazil and Colombia.
As large numbers of Venezuelan migrants began entering the United States after requesting political asylum at the southern border, authorities in a handful of states tied crimes to members of the gang.
It was Trump who put the group on the map.
While campaigning for reelection last year, he appeared at an event in Aurora, Colo., where law enforcement blamed members of Tren de Aragua for several crimes, including murder. Trump stood next to large posters featuring mugshots of Venezuelan immigrants.
“Occupied America. TDA Gang Members,” they read. Banners said: “Deport Illegals Now.”
Shortly after he took office, Trump declared an “invasion” by Tren de Aragua and invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used 18th century law that allows the president to deport immigrants during wartime. His administration flew 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they were housed in a notorious prison, even though few of the men had documented links to Tren de Aragua and most had no criminal records in the United States.
In recent months, Trump has again evoked the threat of Tren de Aragua to explain the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops and a small armada of ships and warplanes to the Caribbean.
In July, his administration declared that Tren de Aragua was a terrorist group led by Maduro. That same month, he ordered the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American cartels that his government has labeled terrorists.
Three times in recent weeks, U.S. troops have struck boats off the coast of Venezuela that it said carried Tren de Aragua members who were trafficking drugs.
The administration offered no proof of those claims. Fourteen people have been killed.
Trump has warned that more strikes are to come. “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” he said in his address to the United Nations.
While he insists the strikes are aimed at disrupting the drug trade — claiming without evidence that each boat was carrying enough drugs to kill 25,000 Americans — analysts say there is little evidence that Tren de Aragua is engaged in high-level drug trafficking, and no evidence that it is involved in the movement of fentanyl, which is produced in Mexico by chemicals imported from China. The DEA estimates that just 8% of cocaine that is trafficked into the U.S. passes through Venezuelan territory.
That has fueled speculation about whether the real goal may be regime change.
“Everybody is wondering about Trump’s end game,” said Irene Mia, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank focused on global security.
She said that while there are officials within the White House who appear eager to work with Venezuela, others, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are open about their desire to topple Maduro and other leftist strongmen in the region.
“We’re not going to have a cartel operating or masquerading as a government operating in our own hemisphere,” Rubio told Fox News this month.
Top U.S. intelligence officials have said they don’t believe Maduro has links to Tren de Aragua.
A declassified memo produced by the Office of Director of National Intelligence found no evidence of widespread cooperation between his regime and the gang. It also said Tren de Aragua does not pose a threat to the U.S.: “The small size of TDA’s cells, its focus on low-skill criminal activities and its decentralized structure make it highly unlikely that TDA coordinates large volumes of human trafficking or migrant smuggling.”
Michael Paarlberg, a political scientist who studies Latin America at Virginia Commonwealth University, said he believes Trump is using the gang to achieve political goals — and distract from domestic controversies such as his decision to close the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Tren de Aragua, he said, is much less powerful than other gangs in Latin America. “But it has been a convenient boogeyman for the Trump administration.”
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday the U.S. has carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela and was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang.
The president said in a social media posting that 11 people were killed in the rare U.S. military operation in the Americas, a dramatic escalation in the Republican administration’s effort to stem the flow of narcotics from Latin America. Trump also posted a short video clip of a small vessel appearing to explode in flames.
“The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States,” Trump said on Truth Social. “No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America.”
The video appears to show a long, multi-engine speedboat traveling at sea when a bright flash of light bursts over the craft. The boat is then briefly seen covered in flames.
The video, which is largely in black and white, is not clear enough to see if the craft is carrying as many as 11 people. The video also did not show any large or clear stashes of drugs inside the boat.
Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent years as more than 7.7 million Venezuelans fled economic turmoil and migrated to other Latin American countries or the U.S.
Trump and administration officials have repeatedly blamed the gang for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some cities. And the president on Tuesday repeated his claim – contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment – that Tren de Aragua is operating under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s control.
The White House did not immediately explain how the military determined that those aboard the vessel were Tren de Aragua members. The size of the gang is unclear, as is the extent to which its actions are coordinated across state lines and national borders.
What Maduro had to say
After Trump announced the strike, Venezuelan state television showed Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores walking the streets of his childhood neighborhood. A television presenter said Maduro was “bathing in patriotic love” as he interacted with supporters.
“In the face of imperialist threats, God (is) with us,” Maduro told supporters.
Maduro did not address the strike directly, but charged that the U.S. is “coming for Venezuela’s riches,” including oil and gas. The South American country has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
“From the neighborhoods of Caracas … I tell you, there will be peace in Venezuela, with sovereignty,” he said.
Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez questioned the veracity of the video. “Based on the video provided, it is very likely that it was created using Artificial Intelligence,” he said on his Telegram account. He couldn’t say what tools would have been used to create the video, but said it showed an “almost cartoonish animation, rather than a realistic depiction of an explosion.”
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio first announced the strike earlier Tuesday, shortly before Rubio left on a trip to Mexico and Ecuador for talks on drug cartels, security, tariffs and more.
In a brief exchange with reporters before departing Miami for Mexico City, Rubio deferred questions about the specifics of the strike to the Pentagon. He said the drugs on the vessel were likely headed to Trinidad or elsewhere in the Caribbean.
For years, Rubio has spoken out against Maduro and other Latin American leftist governments and supported opposition leaders. In 2018, during Trump’s first term, Rubio told Univision there was a “strong argument” to be made for the use of the U.S. military in Venezuela. He’s also accused Venezuelan officials of aiding drug traffickers.
Asked if Trump would carry out operations on Venezuelan soil, Rubio was opaque. “We’re going to take on drug cartels wherever they are and wherever they’re operating against the interests of the United States,” he said.
US sent destroyers to waters off Venezuela
The operation came after the U.S. announced plans last month to boost its maritime force in the waters off Venezuela to combat threats from Latin American drug cartels.
Maduro’s government has responded by deploying troops along Venezuela’s coast and border with neighboring Colombia, as well as by urging Venezuelans to enlist in a civilian militia.
Maduro has insisted that the U.S. is building a false drug-trafficking narrative to try to force him out of office. He and other government officials have repeatedly cited a United Nations report that they say shows traffickers attempt to move only 5% of the cocaine produced in Colombia through Venezuela. Landlocked Bolivia and Colombia, with access to the Pacific and Caribbean, are the world’s top cocaine producers.
The latest U.N. World Drug Report shows that various countries in South America, including Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, reported larger cocaine seizures in 2022 than in 2021, but it does not assign Venezuela the outsize role that the White House has in recent months.
“The impact of increased cocaine trafficking has been felt in Ecuador in particular, which has seen a wave of lethal violence in recent years linked to both local and transnational crime groups, most notably from Mexico and the Balkan countries,” according to the report.
Maduro on Monday told reporters he “would constitutionally declare a republic in arms” if his country were attacked by U.S. forces deployed to the Caribbean.
___
Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City. AP journalists Matthew Lee in Mexico City, Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela, Adriana Gomez Licon in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and Sagar Meghani in Washington contributed reporting.
(CNN) — The United States conducted a deadly military strike against an alleged drug boat tied to the cartel Tren de Aragua, President Donald Trump said Tuesday.
The US president said 11 people were killed in the strike in “international waters.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the “lethal strike” as taking place in the “southern Caribbean” against “a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela.”
The use of military force against Latin American drug cartels represents a significant escalation by the Trump administration and could have serious implications for the region.
“Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” he wrote.
The State Department designated Tren de Aragua, which originated in Venezuela, as a foreign terrorist organization and specially designated global terrorists in February.
The US has amassed a large number of military assets around the Caribbean and Latin America, drawing the ire of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
CNN has asked the Venezuelan government for comment.
In remarks before he departed on a trip to Mexico and Ecuador on Tuesday, Rubio said the “counter-drug mission” would continue.
“We are going to wage combat against drug cartels that are flooding American streets and killing Americans,” Rubio said. He said the route from Venezuela was a “common” one.
Asked by CNN about the legal authority for militarily targeting the cartels, Rubio said, “I’m not going to answer for the White House counsel, suffice it to say that all of those steps were taken in advance.”
“The president has designated these as terrorist organizations, which is what they are,” he said.
Trump on Tuesday afternoon said the US military “just over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug carrying boat.”
“It just happened moments ago, and our great general, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff … he gave us a little bit of a briefing,” Trump said.
“There’s more where that came from,” he said, noting that “a lot of drugs” are “pouring into” the US from Venezuela.
A senior defense official confirmed a “precision strike” against an alleged drug vessel in the southern Caribbean, but did not offer further details about the operation.
CNN previously reported that the US military was deploying more than 4,000 Marines and sailors to the waters around Latin America and the Caribbean as part of a ramped-up effort to combat drug cartels, according to two US defense officials — a show of force that has given the president a broad range of military options should he want to target drug cartels.
The Trump administration has taken an aggressive approach to combating Latin American drug cartels, designating many of them as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
Tom Karako, a senior fellow of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said while he didn’t know of an instance of such action being taken against a drug cartel in the past, “on the other hand I’m not sure that we would (know).”
“It would not surprise me in the slightest if there were a dozen instances that we don’t talk about,” he said.
On Friday, Rubio visited the headquarters of US Southern Command, which has responsibility for the deployed assets. The top US diplomat had previously suggested that military action against the cartels was a possibility.
The robust military presence in the region has drawn heated remarks from Maduro. The Trump administration has increased the bounty for the Venezuelan president to $50 million for drug trafficking.
“It is an extravagant threat… absolutely criminal, bloody. They have wanted to move forward with what they call maximum pressure, and in the face of maximum military pressure, we have prepared maximum readiness,” Maduro said Monday, adding that he will not “bow to threats.”
CNN’s Kylie Atwood, Natasha Bertrand, Haley Britzky, Stefano Pozzebon, Ivonne Valdes Garay, Sol Amaya and Lauren Kent contributed to this report.
This story and headline have been updated with additional details.
Washington, DC – The Pentagon is reportedly sending three warships near Venezuela as President Trump looks to ramp up the pressure on Latin American drug cartels. Reuters cites two sources briefed on the matter.
The Trump administration has designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and other drug gangs as global terrorist organizations. In an address on Monday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said his country “will defend our seas, our skies and our lands” while also mentioning “the outlandish, bizarre threat of a declining empire.”
“Last I checked, political affiliation doesn’t exclude you from being a police officer,” the new police chief said.
People line up for a rally for former President Donald Trump at Aurora’s Gaylord Rockies hotel. Oct. 11, 2024.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
In a social media post, the new Aurora police chief defended the Aurora Police Department for recruiting potential new police officers at a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump.
“Last I checked, political affiliation doesn’t exclude you from being a police officer,” said Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain in a blunt response through APD’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In a recent Aurora Sentinel article, some council members described the APD’s presence as irresponsible and said the event at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center last week was built on fear mongering and xenophobia. Chamberlain said the APD looks for potential new employees at many local events including parades, college job fairs, churches, and nonprofit organizations.
“We will actively capitalize on large crowds and gatherings to raise awareness about the department, and attract potential candidates to the best agency in the United States, the Aurora Police Department,” Chamberlain said.” We are an apolitical organization committed to public service and dedicated to ensuring the city of Aurora is a safe and vibrant community to live, raise a family and own a business.”
One commenter asked if APD would recruit at events for Vice President Kamala Harris, who is this year’s Democratic presidential nominee.
“If VP Harris came to Aurora, we would absolutely recruit at that event, as well! We’ve previously recruited at Democratic sponsored events,” APD responded.
“The decision by our officers to attend Friday’s rally shows initiative and is in line with our commitment to draw a diverse and large pool of candidates to alleviate our present staffing issues,” Chamberlain said.
The use of excessive force that has led to the deaths of Elijah McClain and more recently, Kilyn Lewis, hasn’t helped APD’s recruitment efforts either. Those actions by officers have led to Aurora being the first city in Colorado to be under consent decree by the State Attorney General’s Office.
The city will stop trying to shut down the Edge at Lowry and Whispering Pines Apartments as a third party takes over.
The Edge at Lowry apartment complex, near Aurora’s border with Denver. Sept. 18, 2024.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The owners of two Aurora apartment buildings at the center of an immigration controversy have allegedly failed to make loan payments on about $9 million in debt, resulting in a court giving control of the properties to a third party.
With the change, it appears that the buildings are no longer under threat of closure by the city.
The owners had used the buildings as collateral to secure loans. The buildings are owned by several LLCs linked to CBZ Properties and a man named Zev Baumgarten. But the owners have failed to make payments on the loans in recent months, according to two lawsuits filed by U.S. Bank in recent weeks against the owners.
The landlords have “reported that gang-related activity at the Property has interfered with collection of rents and repairs,” both of the lawsuits claimed.
The building owners failed to make loan payments in July, August and September, putting them in default, the lawsuits claim. When a loan is in default, the lender can try to take the collateral (in this case, the apartments) as a form of compensation for the unpaid debt.
“The Defendants’ inability to pay operating expenses because they lack the necessary cash flow from the Property places the rents, issues and profits of the Property in danger of being lost,” one of the lawsuits argued.
A press conference held by tenants at Aurora’s Edge at Lowry to rebut claims of gang control of the apartment complex , Sept. 4, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The lawsuits are getting results: Both buildings have been placed into receivership, meaning a third party, Kevin A. Singer of California, is now in charge of running the properties, collecting rents and more on behalf of the bank.
Mayor Mike Coffman’s office celebrated the orders as a win. “We are thrilled that the property owners and managers have agreed to let a court-appointed, third-party receiver take control of these private properties to finally address the longstanding issues at each of them,” wrote spokesperson Ryan Luby in an email.
Tenants have complained for months about rodents, broken-down appliances, mold and more. Tenants have complained of a lack of services and repairs, while crime concerns have mounted. A video captured six armed men breaking into an apartment at the Edge, although it’s unclear if they are linked to a gang or not. Shortly afterward, a man was shot to death outside the apartments.
The city had threatened to close the Edge at Lowry through a criminal nuisance case, but that’s off the table for now, Luby said.
A growing pile of trash at The Edge of Lowry apartment complex in Aurora. Tenants, including new immigrants like Venezuelans who have been thrown under the national spotlight, say community members have taken advantage of their situation and have added their own trash to the pile, including a mattress and box spring as witnessed by reporters.Stephanie Rivera/CPR News
U.S. Bank had commissioned a law firm to investigate alleged gang problems at Whispering Pines, finding that Tren de Aragua had tried to steal up to half of rent payments for the building, The Denver Gazette reported.
On Sept. 29, a local judge placed Whispering Pines under receivership. Another judge did the same for the Edge at Lowry on Monday. The Denver Post reported earlier on the receivership orders.
Singer, a California-based specialist in receivership, was designated as receiver of both properties. Singer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about his immediate plans for the properties.
The property owners took out a roughly $2 million loan in April 2022 and another $7.2M loan in Sept. 2023. The owners have paid less than $100,000 of the principal (the actual loan amount) on the first loan and practically none of the principal on the second loan, the lawsuits claim. It’s unclear how much interest had been paid.
The lawsuits were filed against a series of limited-liability companies: 200 Columbia Realty, BZMRS, Whispering Pines Partners and 733 DeKalb Realty. All three share the same address in Denver and are linked to landlord CBZ Management and Zev Baumgarten.
Another related building, Fitzsimons Apartments, was previously closed by the city. But the story is still playing a significant role in national media and politics — with former President Donald Trump set to visit Aurora on Friday.
Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain speaks during a press conference on Friday, September 20, 2024.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Aurora police say they have arrested one man and have warrants for two others who were recordedcarrying guns through an apartment complex in a viral video last month.
The men were allegedly seen with handguns and a rifle, “knocking on doors and unlawfully entering apartments” at the complex on Dallas Street around 11:20 p.m. on Aug, 18.
The video went viral and helped to propel Aurora into the national media and the presidential election. Former President Donald Trump and others pointed to it as evidence that the Venezuelan prisongang Tren de Aragua controls parts of the city. City officials and police have forcefully rejected such claims, though they acknowledge the gang has a presence.
On Sept. 12, police filed arrest warrants for the three men on felony charges of first-degree burglary and menacing with a firearm. One man, Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, 25, is in custody. Two others, Niefred Jose Serpa-Acosta, 20, and Naudi Lopez-Frenandez, 21, are wanted.
The men knocked on the doors of two apartments, forcing their way in and threatening the residents with their guns, police said. There was a fatal shooting outside the building shortly afterward, which remains unsolved.
But police said they haven’t yet “connected” any of the men to a specific criminal organization. Police officials said that verifying gang connections, especially with a foreign criminal organization like Tren de Aragua, is difficult.
“This is not an immigration issue. It’s a crime issue,” said Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain. “We are not overtaken by Venezuelan gangs, Tren de Aragua or any other gang.”
The video was captured at a complex known as the Edge at Lowry.
Shortly after the Aug. 18 video was recorded, police responded to a report of a shooting at the building. One person, 25-year-old Oswaldo Jose Dabion Araujo, was killed. Police believe the video and the shooting are related, but the investigation is ongoing.
The other three men in the apartment hallway video haven’t yet been identified. They are the focus of a “large-scale, multi-jurisdictional operation known as ‘Safe Haven,’” police said. Police later found one firearm that matches the video — a scoped rifle that was hidden in an apartment’s oven.
Police affidavits for the arrest warrants weren’t immediately available.
Edge at Lowry is one of several buildings where landlord CBZ Management has alleged an out-of-control gang takeover. However, city officials say CBZ has failed to care for its properties and allowed them to fall into disarray long before the arrival of hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants.
Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain speaks during a press conference on Friday, September 20, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Chamberlain, who was recently appointed, pushed back on the idea that Tren de Aragua has taken over the apartment building, saying he has not seen tenants forced to pay rent to gang members. Police have, however, acknowledged complaints of rent theft at three affected buildings. The buildings’ managers have claimed that gang members are stealing rent money and threatening management staff.
Last month, Aurora police announced that they had identified 10 other men with possible connections to Tren de Aragua, pressing charges that included domestic violence, threats and assault, including of a building owner. Those earlier arrests were related to crimes at the apartment buildings and around the metro.
Police would not confirm how the department identified those 10 men as members of Tren de Aragua.
Chamberlain said that Aurora police will continue looking into gang affiliations “to help address the spread of crime.” He said the response to crime concerns would require not just police, but also city government, the property managers, youth services and others. Aurora police have offered to put officers in the buildings, he said.
“We are trying to play catchup over the last two years,” Chamberlain said.
Residents of the buildings are caught in the middle. Dozens have rejected the claims of gang control, and they say they’ve faced threats and racist rhetoric because of the national attention.
Researchers have repeatedlydebunked the idea that immigrants — whether or not they are documented — commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans. Other research has found no connection between the number of undocumented residents in a community and its crime rates.
“This is a focus on criminal behavior,” Chamberlain said. “Not a focus on immigration status.”
Aurora’s Edge at Lowry apartment complex. Sept. 4, 2024.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Last week, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman urged the city to shut down the apartment buildings that have made national headlines over an alleged “Venezuelan gang takeover.”
“I strongly believe that the best course of action is to shut these [buildings] down and make sure that this never happens again,” he posted on Facebook.
He was responding to reports of activity by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua at several apartment buildings, which has become the focus of national media coverage.
He added that the Aurora City Attorney’s Office was preparing to, “request an emergency court order to clear the apartment buildings where Venezuelan gang activity has been occurring by declaring the properties a ‘Criminal Nuisance.’”
But those plans are not moving forward, for now.
Aurora is working with the property owners on other options, local officials said. A spokesperson for Coffman said that closing the buildings is no longer the mayor’s goal.
The proposed closures would have affected hundreds of people living in two buildings owned by CBZ Management: The Edge at Lowry and Whispering Pines Apartments.
Residents of Aurora’s Edge at Lowry apartment complex, and their supporters, hold signs during a press conference to “set the record straight” on an alleged “gang takeover” of the property. Sept. 4, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The apparent change of plans comes as Coffman is reportedly negotiating with the landlords at CBZ Management. They’re working on a plan, according to a city spokesperson.
“Due to new communications with the property owners and their attorneys since [last] Friday, there are no immediate plans to go forward with such a request at this time,” wrote Aurora spokesperson Michael Brannen, in a statement this week. “But it remains one of the City’s legal options moving forward, if needed.”
What we know and what we don’t about these apartment complexes and Tren de Aragua
The city and the landlord have a strained relationship. Coffman has called the owners “slumlords,” while the landlords have accused the city of letting Tren de Aragua “take over” the buildings.
The city and the landlord have been in a multi-year battle with the city over zoning code and habitability issues — complaints residents have been making for years. That dispute led to the previous shutdown of Fitzsimons Place, forcing families out of nearly 100 units.
There’s another complicating factor: Coffman doesn’t have the power to unilaterally shut down apartments, according to Councilmember Crystal Murillo. She’s the representative of the district in western Aurora that is home to the apartment buildings.
Aurora Police officers march into the recently closed Fitzsimons Place apartments in Aurora to make sure people move out. Aug. 13, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
A shutdown would require support from Council and also work from the City Manager, she said.
Murillo is uncertain how her fellow council members would vote, but she opposes a shutdown. She told Denverite she’s concerned that the apartments are unlivable and that the landlord has abandoned the building — but if the building is closed, residents will have nowhere to go, and many could be left homeless.
“I am concerned that people are still at risk,” Murillo said. “We already know there’s a shortage of affordable units that are livable. And you know, I’m concerned that this false narrative is making that even harder.”
Inside an apartment at Aurora’s Edge at Lowry complex, where residents are protesting their landlords alleged negligence of the property. Sept. 4, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Community activists rallied on Tuesday to decry the idea of shutting down the apartments, as well as to protest CBZ Management’s alleged poor upkeep of the buildings, as well as to push back on what they described as racist and biased media coverage of their community.
Several Venezuelan immigrants said they can’t find new apartments because landlords don’t want to rent to them — a problem that’s only grown worse with sometimes hyperbolic claims of a gang takeover in Aurora.
The City of Aurora is already embroiled in legal action against Zev Baumgarten, an owner of CBZ. The company has not responded to multiple Denverite requests for comment. Coffman also has not responded to requests for interviews about those negotiations or his desire to shutter the buildings.
Aurora previously shuttered a separate CBZ Management property, displacing hundreds of people
The closure of Fitzsimons Place, at 1568 Nome Street, forced 300 tenants out of 99 units.
The City of Aurora provided those tenants with a few weeks of rent and the possibility of downpayment assistance, but no city workers were on the ground to help tenants on the day of the shutdown. Only nonprofit workers were present.
Weeks after the shutdown, Nate Kassa, an organizer with the East Colfax Community Collective, said organizers are overwhelmed as they try to find new housing for so many people.
Emily Goodman, with the East Colfax Community Collaborative, helps Yubusay Fonseca find a place to go after she and her neighbors were forced to move out of the recently closed Fitzsimons Place apartments in Aurora. Aug. 13, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Many families from the Nome Street apartments fell through the cracks, and he worries they may be living on the streets, he said. Murillo fears the same would happen to the residents of the other CBZ Management apartments the city has considered shuttering.
Murillo has heard from housing advocates that some landlords are reluctant to rent to people coming from the CBZ buildings, “because now they’re all being labeled incorrectly and falsely as gang members,” she said.
“And so really, the collateral damage are still the residents. They were the victims in the first place. They’re still the victims now. And they’re suffering the consequences and being caught in the crossfire of this political grandstanding that’s happening.”
For the last year the Dallas Police Department has been investigating criminal activity committed by members of a Venezuelan gang in North Dallas, a department spokesperson told the Observer Wednesday. According to the department, several individuals in the North Dallas area are believed to be associated with the Tren de Aragua gang, a Venezuelan criminal organization that has reportedly crept into the United States in recent months. …
