Suspect in Aurora gang video was under deportation order, but released by ICE

A member of the Tren de Aragua gang was under a deportation order when he and five friends were allegedly filmed storming an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado last month, according to ICE.

ICE took 20-year-old Niefred Serpa-Acosta into custody after two theft arrests – but released him on July 17, despite a judge ruling he should be removed from the country, said to the Post an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson.

The illegal Venezuelan migrant had also admitted that he was a member of the violent Venezuelan criminal organization — and that he had the tattoos to prove it, law enforcement sources previously told the Post.

It is unclear why Serpa-Acosta has not been deported from the United States, but the Biden-Harris administration is not deporting Venezuelan migrants because Venezuela’s communist regime does not accept deportation flights.

He remains on the run.

A month after being released, the admitted Tren de Aragua gangbanger was filmed storming a building with five other men – including one armed with a rifle – and forcing their way into a unit.

The images went viral and made the Denver suburbs the leading national example of how sanctuary city crime and gang problems linked to the influx of migrants are flowing to the suburbs.

Aurora police officers identified two other suspects, Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, 25, and Naudi Lopez Fernandez, 21, who both crossed the border illegally last year and were released by federal authorities to the states -United, according to sources.

Both men had lengthy criminal records in Colorado, but there is no evidence yet of their affiliation with Tren de Aragua.

Aurora police said Wednesday they have also identified the three other suspects involved in the incident, but have not yet released their identities.

An ICE spokesperson told the Post that the agency took Serpa-Acosta into custody at the Larimer County Jail in Fort Collins on April 24, which was holding him on a theft charge. However, the prison released him without informing ICE.

He was then arrested again on charges of theft, resisting arrest, and obstructing an officer, and ICE again issued a detainer to the Douglas County Jail on May 16. This time, ICE was able to arrest him the next day.

Acosta crossed the border illegally into El Paso, Texas, in December 2022, then volunteered to leave and returned to Mexico, according to sources. However, ICE said he was not deported and was in fact “released on his own recognizance.”

It is unclear why he was allowed into the country.

Serpa-Acosta and five other men were featured in surveillance footage taken in late August at an Aurora apartment complex that was overrun by the violent Venezuelan prison gang as they broke into a unit.

Just 10 minutes after the incident, the group was allegedly involved in a fatal shooting, according to CBS Denver.

Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said recently that the department has not connected the suspects to any gang, adding that it is difficult to specifically identify Tren de Aragua members.

“A lot of these individuals that we’re talking about come from a country that doesn’t have strong relationships with the United States, come from a country that doesn’t have a database that they’re going to share,” he said. -he declared.

After the nearby sanctuary city of Denver received the highest number of migrants per capita in the country, some of them began spilling over to neighboring Aurora, a city of 400,000.

And Tren de Argua accompanied them.

The gang’s establishment in the quiet bedroom community led the city to form a task force to combat the gang.

Worse, sanctuary laws limit local law enforcement’s ability to communicate with ICE, former Denver ICE Director John Fabbricatore recently told the Post.

“More and more information continues to come out about Tren de Aragua’s growing presence in Aurora and throughout Colorado. Due to sanctuary jurisdiction, local police are missing out on important intelligence and information collections conducted by ICE,” said Fabbricatore, who is now running to represent Colorado in Congress.

“The sanctuary jurisdiction helps TdA and they know they can get away with more in Colorado than in other states,” he added.