A federal grand jury in the District of Colorado indicted four Venezuelan nationals linked to the Tren de Aragua transnational criminal organization on Wednesday for their role in the armed robbery of a family-owned jewelry store in Denver in June.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado identified the four Venezuelan nationals as 23-year-old Oswaldo Lozada-Solis, 20-year-old Jesus Daniel Lara Del Toro, 21-year-old Jean Franco Torres-Roman, and 18-year-old Edwuimar Nazareth Colina-Romero.
According to the indictment, the four suspects robbed Joyeria El Ruby Jewelry Store, located on West 38th Avenue in Denver. Eight men were reportedly involved in the robbery, of which four were indicted on Wednesday.
During the robbery, the suspects pointed weapons at employees, struck several employees with their weapons, issued death threats to the store’s staff, and took millions of U.S. dollars’ worth of goods from the family-owned store, according to its owners. The suspects wiped the store in a matter of three minutes, according to testimonies from one of the store’s managers.
Homeland Security sources told the New York Post in early August that Torres-Roman — who illegally crossed the U.S. border in 2023 — was identified as a member of the Tren de Aragua. Torres-Roman was arrested in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
The four suspects appeared in court on Tuesday and Wednesday. Lozada-Solis, Del Toro, and Torres-Roman were charged with armed robbery and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, while Colina-Romero is charged with transporting stolen goods and possession of stolen goods.
Tren de Aragua, a transnational crime syndicate long believed to have deep ties with Venezuela’s socialist regime, has dramatically expanded its presence and criminal activities across several U.S. cities in recent years as more of its members continue to enter the United States.
U.S. authorities have confirmed the gang’s presence in Miami, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta. Police officials from Dallas, Texas, announced this week that criminal activities linked to the gang have been detected in the northern area of the city.
Tren de Aragua’s growing list of criminal activities in the United States range from violent cell phone robbery schemes in New York to a now-dismantled sex trafficking network In Louisiana that reportedly smuggled its victims to the United States after teaching them how to request asylum at the U.S. southern border. The gang members forced the victims into prostitution to pay for the “debt” accrued from smuggling them into the United States.
The New York Post reported in July that, according to a Homeland Security Investigations memo reviewed by the outlet, Tren de Aragua leader gave the “green light” to its members to shoot police officers in Denver, Colorado. According to the Post’s report, Denver has received 42,000 migrants — more per capita than any other U.S. city — many of them hailing from Venezuela.
The Aurora, Colorado, police department announced the creation this week of a joint task force with both Colorado’s state patrol and the state’s Bureau of Investigation to address the growing threat of Tren de Aragua in the state. The joint task force’s goal, according to Aurora’s police, will be to “assist agencies around the area by maximizing resources and sharing intelligence in ongoing investigations.”
“We’re also aggressively, you know, having presence in these pockets where there’s concentrations of Venezuelan migrants, to be able to try to ourselves, or at least our law enforcement personnel at the local, state and federal levels, to identify who these bad actors are and get them off the street,” Mayor of Aurora Mike Coffman said.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
