Denver and federal officials announced the indictment of two suspected Tren de Aragua (TdA) leaders in Denver on Thursday for racketeering that included robbery, extortion, kidnapping, money laundering and controlled substance abuse over a 14-month period in 2024.

Indicted were Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano and Brawins Dominique Suarez Villegas, aka “Chino San Vicente.”

Gang members have been linked to a myriad of criminal activities that include human trafficking — specifically immigrant women and girls — drug trafficking, kidnapping, and money laundering.

According to U.S. authorities, members of the Venezuelan prison gang hid in plain sight by infiltrating immigrants headed north. But the gang’s brutal reputation — magnified by reports the gang had “taken over” apartment complexes in Aurora — quickly made TdA a political flashpoint.

President Donald Trump seized on that fear on the campaign trail, citing the gang as evidence of unchecked immigration and using it to bolster calls for stricter border enforcement.

“They’re a savage gang, one of the worst in the world and they’re getting bigger all the time because of our stupidity,” Trump has said.

Law enforcement sources earlier this year said fewer than two dozen TdA affiliates have been arrested in the Denver metro area, a figure that falls far short of the sweeping purge the president promised on a campaign stop in Aurora last fall.

The low arrest figures in the Denver metro area may mask a more complex reality, one in which identifying and apprehending TdA gang members requires time, intelligence and luck.

“Gang members and real criminals aren’t the easiest to catch,” John Fabbricatore, a former ICE field office director, has said.

No one knows with certainty how many TdA gang members are in the United States, illustrating the difficulty law enforcement has had in tracking the gang’s operations.

Last year, the FBI reported roughly 400 TdA members in New York alone, according to an internal Oct. 5, 2023 Aurora police bulletin.

Ronna Rísquez — an investigative journalist and author of “El Tren de Aragua: La banda que revolucionó el crimen organizado en América Latina” — estimates the gang has about 5,000 members.

Editor’s note: This is a developing story.