Aurora's landlord says Tren de Aragua took over the apartment and tried to extort her

The evidence of the violence of Tren de Aragua in Aurora, Colorado is written in blood.

A tired landlord in suburban Denver shared a bloody photo of one of his workers after the man was allegedly beaten to a pulp by members of the brutal Venezuelan prison gang for refusing to let them stay in a vacant apartment they had taken over .

The Brooklyn-based company claimed the gang effectively seized entire apartment complexes from it by threatening employees and tried to extort a cut in rent in exchange for allowing it to continue operating the properties.

Local police and the FBI were asked to help stop the extortion but refused to intervene, CBZ management said.

“Gangs have taken control of several of our properties in Aurora, Colorado,” the company wrote in a thread on X last week.

“In order to discredit this fact for political reasons and evade government accountability, some have spread false information about our situation.”

The company that owns and manages the properties released several surveillance videos from its apartment complexes — including footage of the employee's beating late last year — that it says prove the gang has a foothold in Aurora.

The company said it had no choice but to pull its workers from its apartment complexes in the city of 390,000 because of the criminal behavior and threats.

“Despite clear evidence, many still deny the reality of the situation and sometimes use us as scapegoats. Therefore, we are no longer silent,” the company wrote.

“We will continue to combat falsehoods with simple facts and evidence. Yes, gangs have taken control of our apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado and the government has done nothing. That’s the real story.”

The post was the first to draw national attention to Tren de Aragua's takeover of apartments and neighborhoods in Aurora. On Friday, former President Donald Trump visited the city and tried to link the problems in Aurora to the Harris-Biden administration's border policies.

The problem now also has a deeper local aspect. CBZ management has a history of subpoenas dating back to 2020, before the gang's arrival in Aurora. According to Denver7, the violations range from mouse infestations to ceiling damage to dozens of illegally parked cars.

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman has called the company “slumlords” for failing to clean the buildings.

Zev Baumgarten, described in court documents as CBZ's owner, agreed earlier this year to sell or otherwise relinquish control of one of the dilapidated apartment complexes after lengthy legal proceedings against him and his company, according to the Denver Gazette.

CBZ management accused the city of covering up the foreign gang's presence, saying it had “instead hyped up 'code violations'” to shift blame.

The company said it “received a clean inspection in 2022 and 2023” and any violations were “punished.”

“The only violations that went unaddressed occurred when the gangs took over and we didn't want our six on-site employees working there – for their safety,” the company said.

Despite the local dispute over the condition of the apartments, residents and local officials interviewed by The Post said Tren de Aragua's presence in the buildings was clear.

According to CBZ, the company took delivery of the apartments in 2019 with the hope of renovating the units over the course of a few years. The company said it was able to renovate nearly every unit at the Edge at Lowry apartments, where viral footage was recently shot of six armed gangbangers breaking into a unit.

According to the post on

But the company said it soon saw “an increase in crime and tenant complaints.”

The employee was attacked. He inspected a recently vacated unit and encountered a group of male squatters who tried to bribe him with $500 “to overlook the situation,” the CBZ management post said.

When the employee refused the bribe, the group beat him so badly that he had to be hospitalized.

The problem didn't stop there. According to CBZ, the employee received threats via text messages that even revealed his home address and his spouse's name.

The problem only escalated further. Squads of Tren de Aragua members continued to take over vacant units — including one that belonged to a tenant who had only left on vacation, forcing him to find a new home upon his return, the company said.

The gang began moving migrants into the units. The new tenants claimed to have paid rent, but the company soon realized that they had actually paid rent to the gang.

CBZ said company executives later met with the FBI. Agents said Tren de Aragua was behind the texts and building takeovers, but the problem was “a blip on the radar” because of the gang's nationwide presence, the company said.

The on-site apartment manager was then confronted by the gang, who threatened to take control of the apartments if the company did not agree to split the rental profits, the company said.

“To ensure the safety of our management team and their families, we have withdrawn them from the properties and focused on seeking assistance from government authorities,” the company said.

An Aurora representative called CBZ's claims “exaggerations,” adding that the company “conveniently” failed to disclose additional complaints against them.

“These delinquent property owners, managers and/or 'investors' conveniently do not acknowledge that their own bank lenders have taken them to court in recent weeks, where a judge ordered receivership on some of their problem properties,” the spokesperson said.

“This means that a judge has given a third-party manager the legal authority to actually manage the properties and whom the property owners must oblige to compensate.”

The FBI declined to comment.

Mayor Coffman has previously dismissed the landlord's claims that the company's problems were due to Tren de Aragua – particularly regarding the building the company wanted to abandon.

“It’s a little late to play the Venezuelan gang card,” Coffman said at the time. “Of course there are other parts of the city that we are keeping an eye on and are concerned about. But the problems in this building certainly predate any problems with Venezuelan gangs.”