DENVER – The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado announces that Darwin Veliz-Gonzalez, Jefferson Balza-Delfin, and Yender Enrique Campos-Malave, all of Venezuela, were each sentenced to 240 months in federal prison for kidnapping and torturing a man in Denver. The sentencing of a fourth defendant was continued to a later date.
According to the plea agreements and facts established in the sentencing hearings, on October 16, 2024, the Denver Police Department received a welfare call reporting that someone had been kidnapped at a home at 535 South Hazel Court in Denver. When they arrived at the home, officers conducted a limited visual search and did not find a person in distress. The next morning, the victim walked into a Denver Police Station to report that he had been the victim of kidnapping and assault at the aforementioned address and showed officers that he was missing his right pinky finger which had been severed by the kidnappers.
The victim had been renting a room in the home and several of his roommates had kidnapped, tortured, and assaulted him after finding out that he and his father were police officers in Venezuela. The defendants tied the victim up with rope and held him without food and with very little water for several days. The defendants also filmed themselves torturing the victim by strangling him with a rope until he nearly lost consciousness, repeatedly holding his head in a bucket of water for thirty seconds or more, threatening him with a firearm, and pistol whipping him. The defendants sent videos of the torture to the victim’s wife and to international leadership of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang with whom they also consulted about the kidnapping. The videos were used to demand a ransom from the victim’s wife and family in Venezuela. When the victim’s family did not pay the ransom demand, the victim heard the defendants discuss cutting off one of his fingers—something one of the TdA leaders explicitly suggested the defendants do to motivate the family to pay. Balza-Delfin used a pair of pliers to cut off the victim’s finger, an act which was also filmed.
The victim had been in the house when Denver Police did the welfare check the prior evening but was afraid to make himself known. After the police visited, three of the men fled the residence and the victim managed to escape and made his way to the police station.
A federal grand jury in the District of Colorado has also indicted Brawins Dominique Suarez Villegas, a/k/a “Chino San Vicente,” for his role in the October 2024 kidnapping and torture. Suarez Villegas is also charged with a RICO conspiracy, alleging that from May 2024 through on or about March of 2025, he conducted activity for Tren de Aragua through a pattern of racketeering activity that included robbery, extortion, kidnapping, money laundering and controlled substance offenses. The charges contained in the indictment against Suarez Villegas are merely accusations, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. (Case Number: 25-cr-331-PAB)
“This is what Tren de Aragua was doing in our community,” said United States Attorney for the District of Colorado 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.”
“The FBI, alongside our local, state, federal, and international partners, is working to disrupt and dismantle TdA through intelligence-driven investigations like this from our Violent Criminal Enterprise Task Force,” said FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Amanda Koldjeski. “The FBI remains committed to investigating members of violent transnational gangs whose actions violate the laws of the United States and put innocent American lives at risk.”
“The Denver Police Department holds offenders accountable regardless of their immigration status and the arrest of these individuals demonstrates just that,” said Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas. “I applaud the victim of this heinous crime, and all victims – regardless of immigration status – for reporting criminal behaviors and helping us arrest those who prey on our community members.”
United States Senior District Judge John L. Kane presided over the sentencings.
The FBI Denver Field Office and the Denver Police Department handled the investigation.
The Violent Crimes Section of the United States Attorney’s Office handled the prosecution.
Case Number: 25-cr-00077-JLK
Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office — Colorado — U.S. Department of Justice press release.