Before they became national news, young Venezuelan gang members in Colorado were harassing each other at gunpoint, stealing cars to commit other crimes and crashing wherever they could find a bed, according to arrest documents obtained by The Denver Gazette.

One particular set of crimes involving two of the 10 Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members arrested by Aurora police involved an entanglement of mostly 20-something Venezuelan immigrants in a what appeared to be a free-for-all turf war, documents reviewed by The Denver Gazette showed.

Two weeks before a confirmed TdA gang member was arrested for assault in an argument over rent money, he was the victim of a mafia-style crime at The Edge at Lowry apartments at 1218 Dallas St. in Aurora, according to the arrest affidavits.

During that incident, Daniel Mora-Marquez told police that he was afraid for his life, adding that if he was seen talking with authorities, “his family could be placed in danger in Venezuela.”

It was not the only statement Mora-Marquez made to police that did not appear to line up with his actions.

He said that he had not lived in the apartment at 1218 Dallas Street for very long and assured officers that he did not know the men who broke into an apartment as he and a woman were sleeping inside.

He and Destiny Cruz told police that they were married, but according to court records, they had only just met.

Last Wednesday, after appearing to have been on the run, Mora-Marquez was arrested on warrants out of Arapahoe and Adams counties, alleging a two-month crime spree spanning from early April to late June, the Aurora police said.

Those incidents included arrests stemming from an argument and assault over unpaid rent money in the 1600 block of Lima Street in Aurora on April 4.

That home is just blocks from the Aspen Grove apartments, which were the scene of other TdA activity before the complex was evacuated and shut down by the city in August.

Once arrested, he posted $20,000 bond, but did not show up for his court hearing. With a second warrant out for arrest, Mora-Marquez shot six rounds into the home in the 400 block of Nile Street on June 29, according to the police.

In that incident, Mora-Marquez was retaliating against the homeowner for kicking him out, the homeowner told police.

He is also charged with assaulting his girlfriend as they sat in their car.

No one had heard from the girlfriend or Mora-Marquez since he was arrested last Wednesday.

A tangled plot

It was while Mora-Marquez was wanted for the Lima Street crime that he and Destiny Cruz became victims themselves, according to documents.

On May 18, a man — later identified by Aurora police as a member of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang — broke into the couple’s second floor apartment at The Edge at Lowry property, according to the arrest records.

The documents indicate that the intruder, Carlos Gabriel Aranguren-Mayora, was a neighbor. Mora-Marquez told police he lived on the first floor of an adjacent building on The Edge property.

Cruz told police that the suspect pointed a silver semi-automatic pistol at the couple and was joined at the front door by five to six other men.

While at gunpoint, Cruz said she overheard Aranguren-Mayora remark: “they run s***,” the affidavits said, adding the intruders walked Cruz and Mora-Marquez at gunpoint to Cruz’s black Toyota Camry, threatened to shoot them and asked in Spanish, “You want to die?”

The couple then handed over the keys to the car, fled and eventually located an Aurora police patrolman and identified Aranguren-Mayora, the records added.

During their investigation, police learned that he was out on bond for a separate criminal mischief and felony menacing case out of Adams County.

Aranguren-Mayora, who was later arrested for the home invasion, faces a theft charge of an item worth $5 to $20,000, two counts of second-degree burglary and four counts of felony menacing.

The Aranguren-Mayora, 23, has a hearing Wednesday afternoon on a separate crime and Mora-Marquez’s next court appearance is a preliminary hearing on Oct. 30. Both cases are being prosecuted out of Arapahoe County.

Aurora Police Department spokesperson Joe Moylan would not say if more arrests of known TdA gang members are forthcoming, but he noted that the department would continue to release information about confirmed TdA members once they “are thoroughly vetted and verified.”

No history, no trail

A pre-trial report on Mora-Marquez shows almost nothing on him except for his crimes. There is no record of a job, an address, relatives, driver’s license or education. Only his crimes, which stretched into Adams County, and his birthdate are listed.

His place of birth is marked only as “VZ.”

There is a 2023 Immigration and Naturalization Service violation.

Information on Aranguren-Mayora is even more scarce. For him, there is no pretrial report to be found. Any information police would have gleaned from him would have been what he told them.

Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney John Kellner said that his office is “actively monitoring gang-related crime,” noting that immigrant crime is hard to prosecute with a population that often has no known record.

“One of the many challenges we deal with is not having information about a suspect’s criminal history or their ties to other known criminals,” he said.

Still, he knows that people are frustrated “when immigrants enter our country illegally and then go on to commit crimes in our community,” Kellner said.