Three men get 20 years each for Denver kidnapping and torture carried out for Tren de Aragua

Darwin Veliz-Gonzalez, Jefferson Balza-Delfin and Yender Enrique Campos-Malave, all Venezuelan nationals, were each sentenced to 240 months in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado announced. The sentencing of a fourth defendant was continued to a later date, and Senior District Judge John L. Kane presided over the sentencings.

According to plea agreements and facts established at the sentencing hearings, Denver police received a welfare call on Oct. 16, 2024, reporting that someone had been kidnapped at a home at 535 South Hazel Court. Officers conducted a limited visual search and found no one in distress. The next morning, the victim walked into a Denver police station to report the kidnapping and assault and showed officers that his right pinky finger had been severed by the kidnappers.

The victim had been renting a room in the home. Several of his roommates kidnapped, tortured and assaulted him after learning that he and his father were police officers in Venezuela, prosecutors said. The men tied him with rope and held him without food and with very little water for several days.

The defendants filmed themselves strangling him with a rope until he nearly lost consciousness, repeatedly holding his head in a bucket of water for 30 seconds or more, threatening him with a firearm and pistol-whipping him, prosecutors said. The videos were sent to the victim's wife and to international leaders of Tren de Aragua, with whom the men also consulted about the kidnapping, and were used to demand ransom from the victim's family in Venezuela.

When the family did not pay, the victim heard the defendants discussing cutting off one of his fingers, an act a Tren de Aragua leader explicitly suggested to pressure the family, prosecutors said. Balza-Delfin used a pair of pliers to cut off the finger, and the act was filmed.

The victim had been inside the house when Denver police did the welfare check the evening before but was too afraid to make himself known, prosecutors said. After the visit, three of the men fled the residence and the victim managed to escape and made his way to the police station.

"This is what Tren de Aragua was doing in our community," said U.S. Attorney Peter McNeilly. "Colorado is safer with these violent criminals in federal prison for the next 20 years, and we will continue to pursue every member of Tren de Aragua until there are no more left in our state." FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Amanda Koldjeski said the bureau is working with local, state, federal and international partners to dismantle the gang, and Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said his department holds offenders accountable regardless of immigration status while praising the victim for coming forward.

A federal grand jury separately indicted Brawins Dominique Suarez Villegas, also known as "Chino San Vicente," for his role in the October 2024 kidnapping and torture, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. He is also charged with a RICO conspiracy alleging that from May 2024 through about March 2025 he conducted activity for Tren de Aragua through a pattern of racketeering that included robbery, extortion, kidnapping, money laundering and controlled substance offenses. The charges in the indictment are accusations and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.