The company that operates the apartment buildings where Tren de Aragua members were reported in Aurora, Colorado, said state officials “refused to acknowledge the reality” and instead ignored their pleas for help to target the gang.
CBZ Management Shifts is a New York-based management business that operates the Aurora apartment complexes where TdA has “taken control,” per the company’s admission. In a lengthy thread to X posted by CBZ over the weekend, the company gave an account of the TdA debacle that contradicted the narrative from city officials and accused them of “deny[ing] the reality of the situation, [and] sometimes using us as scapegoats.”
While the Aurora Police Department has confirmed the presence of 10 TdA members inhabiting the city (law enforcement has captured nine of them), Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) and city officials have largely denied that TdA members controlled CBZ’s apartment complexes. Instead, it called CBZ “slumlords” and cited company neglect and mismanagement for leading to the conditions that led to the closure of one of the apartment complexes for what the city called “code violations.”
But CBZ said that’s not the whole story, putting its side of the narrative in a post that said the gang took over three of its properties in Aurora while the city stood by.
Gangs have taken control of several of our properties in Aurora, Colorado.
In an attempt to discredit this fact for political purposes and avoid governmental accountability, some have spread false information about our situation. Let’s set the record straight…
pic.twitter.com/Df9XMkwNtX
— Cbz Management (@CbzManagement) October 11, 2024
CBZ wrote that after acquiring the apartment complexes, which were in “poor condition” in 2019, it undertook “a complete renovation of nearly every unit in the now well-known building you’ve seen in the news.”
“Everything was progressing smoothly: property values were rising, and vacancy rates were dropping,” CBZ said. Some media reports indicate that the CBZ complex was experiencing tenant complaints in 2020, prior to the arrival of TdA members in the community. Comments made by the company over the weekend that the renovation project it started in 2019 “would take years to yield results” could explain the overlap. The Washington Examiner reached out to CBZ inquiring into the matter but had not received a response at the time of publishing.
The property management company said it ran into problems, such as a rise “in crime and tenant complaints” when TdA gang members “arrived,” reported their problems to the City Council, and found that “none were willing to take meaningful action.”
CBZ said the council’s alleged stonewalling came despite the gang’s “brutal” attack on a company representative sent to check the apartment buildings.
“He had gone to inspect a recently vacated three-bedroom apartment (a rare occurrence for such a large unit) only to find a group of men already inside. When he refused their $500 bribe to overlook the situation, they brutally attacked him,” CBZ wrote. A photo attached to the statement appears to depict the representative in question with his face and shirt bloodied, as well as a black eye.
After CBZ said it realized gang members were operating a scheme to act as landlords to newcomers and illegally take rent from people, many of them immigrants sent to live in the complexes by Aurora-area nonprofit groups, it once again contacted “every city official we could think of for help with the problem.”
“Unfortunately, none were willing to take meaningful action,” the company said.
After some time, we noticed a rise in crime and tenant complaints. The most alarming moment occurred when our local CBZ representative was attacked at the end of 2023.
He had gone to inspect a recently vacated three-bedroom apartment (a rare occurrence for such a large unit)… pic.twitter.com/VkzMwmlixA
— Cbz Management (@CbzManagement) October 11, 2024
Then a flurry of federal agencies, including the FBI, confirmed to CBZ that the people “controlling our buildings were part of the notorious Tren De Aragua gang from Venezuela.”
“Two days after our FBI meeting, the gang confronted our on-site manager, asserting control over all three properties. They offered an ultimatum: share rental income 50/50 or lose the buildings permanently. They also threatened to harm him and his family,” the company continued.
At that point, CBZ said it gave up the fight and withdrew management personnel from the apartment complexes “for safety reasons.”
In August, the city of Aurora announced plans to shutter one of CBZ’s apartment complexes and cited “unresolved code violations and other poor conditions at the property for the last few years” as the reason for the closure.
But CBZ pushed back, saying that it was city officials’ own failure to help CBZ target TdA gang members in the buildings that led to management personnel withdrawing from the properties and the ultimate downfall of the buildings.
“Despite the obvious crisis, several city officials refused to acknowledge the reality. Instead, they blamed us, citing ‘code violation” as the reason for shutting down our property — violations we couldn’t resolve for tenants who weren’t even ours,” the company said.
Despite the FBI’s report that TdA members were wreaking havoc in the apartment complex, Aurora City Mayor Mike Coffman said at the time that the problems in the building were not caused by gang activity.
“It’s a little late to play the Venezuelan gang card,” he said. “Certainly, there are other parts of the city that we’re looking at, that we’re concerned about that. But the problems in this building certainly precede any problems with Venezuelan gangs.”
Last month, Aurora Police Department Chief Todd Chamberlain said gangs had not “taken over” the city but didn’t address if gang members had controlled the apartment complex. The same month, APD’s interim police chief, Heather Morris, alleged that “gang members have not taken over this complex.”
The APD has prominently shifted blame to CBZ over the problems with the apartment complex, including during a press conference on Sept. 20, stating it tried to assist and warn the property management company about festering problems.
However, CBZ recorded only one City Council member, Danielle Jurinsky, who listened to their calls for reform.
She obtained video “evidence” of gang violence in the apartment buildings from a concerned tenant named Cindy Romero and, along with the city’s mayor, led a statement last month on the situation that sought to “clear the record about the widely reported presence of Tren de Aragua (TdA) in Aurora and across the metro area.” The press release stated that while TdA had not “taken over” the city, it could “now confirm that criminal activity, including TdA issues, had significantly affected” CBZ’s apartment complexes.
Colorado’s Democratic governor has largely downplayed the gang’s presence in Aurora, telling the New York Post that Jurinsky’s concerns were “largely a feature” of her “imagination.”
But during an Aurora City Council meeting on Monday, Jurinsky indicated she had more video footage of gang activity in the apartment complexes. She urged Polis to “call me because I have video footage that will do bigger things than bring Donald Trump to the city of Aurora.”
Finally, one city councilwoman, @DaniJurinsky, decided to take action after one of our last remaining legitimate tenants, Cindy Romero, reached out to her in desperation.
Luckily, Cindy had her own cameras (most of ours had been destroyed by the gangs) and provided video proof… pic.twitter.com/M9zdHdMEp4
— Cbz Management (@CbzManagement) October 11, 2024
Trump visited the town earlier this month, where he brought Romero, the tenant who had helped lead accusations about TdA occupying CBZ’s apartment complex, onstage to speak at his rally.
“in Aurora, multiple apartment complexes have been taken over by the savage Venezuela prison gang,” Trump said before adding, “Did anybody think five years ago, six years — that anybody would be up here talking about that a Venezuelan gang with the most sophisticated rifles, weapons, and guns that anybody has ever seen would be taking over your state?”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Jurinsky indicated on Monday that her videos would provide further damning evidence of the debacle.
“There’s only one other person on the planet that’s in possession of this video footage, and I’ll tell you that it’s haunted me to my core. I’m asking you, governor, to put politics aside. I’m asking you to call me, to call me and see the videos that I am in possession of because we need leadership,” she said. “if you do not call me, the videos will come out.”
Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky @DaniJurinsky asks Colorado Gov. Jared Polis @GovofCO to call her. She says she has video footage “that will do bigger things than bring Donald Trump to the city of Aurora.” @DenverChannel
#copolitics #AuroraCO #aurora pic.twitter.com/A6akJpFkI1
— Brandon Richard (@BrandonLRichard) October 15, 2024
