Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Friday that a town in Colorado was overrun with Venezuelan gang members after a video from an apartment building went viral—and the state’s governor’s office told Newsweek it’s ready to lend a hand in the matter.
The comments, made at a rally, came after the Mayor of Aurora Mike Coffman said Thursday that two apartment buildings had been overtaken by migrants.
“This is an organized criminal effort. Whether it’s trend, a drug war, that remains to be seen,” Coffman told Fox News, after a video of armed gang members went viral.
On Friday, the city announced that it was seeking a court order to clear the apartments by declaring them a “criminal nuisance”.
That criminal nuisance was reportedly the Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua (TdA), who were operating in the area.
The video in question showed men with assault rifles busting down doors of an apartment unit in the city.
Aurora’s police department said Thursday that it had set up a special task force to address concerns about the Venezuelan gang members and other criminal activity linked to migrants in the area.
“We are aware that components of TdA are operating in Aurora. APD has been increasingly collecting evidence to show the gang is connected to crimes in the area,” the department said.
The TdA began as a prison gang in Aragua, Venezuela, before expanding rapidly in recent years, according to the U.S. Department of State, focusing on human trafficking and other abuses of desperate migrants.