A Venezuelan man was arrested Thursday after Aurora police say he helped kidnap and torture two people inside of a vacant unit at the Edge at Lowry apartment complex in December.
Breider Jhoan Ospino-Morillo, 24, was arrested in Auburn Hills, Mich., by local police responding to a theft from a clothing store, Aurora police wrote in a social media post.
A Colorado arrest warrant was issued in December for Ospino-Morillo, who faces charges of second-degree kidnapping, aggravated robbery, menacing with a deadly weapon and extortion. He is also suspected of retail fraud in connection with the incident in Auburn Hills, said Joe Taylor, a civilian employee of the Auburn Hills Police Department.
Ospino-Morillo is the 11th person to be arrested after the kidnapping at the troubled Aurora apartment complex that was shuttered in February. Police Chief Todd Chamberlain previously said the victims, a man and woman who lived at the complex, were bound, pistol-whipped, threatened and tortured for hours. The man also was stabbed.
One other suspect, whom Aurora police spokesperson Sydney Edwards said the department is not identifying publicly, remains at large.
Aurora police wrote that Ospino-Morillo was in the custody of federal law enforcement as of Friday afternoon.
U.S. Border Patrol chief Michael Banks wrote in a separate post shortly after the Auburn Hills arrests that one of the arrestees, whom he did not name, was “wanted for kidnapping and torture in Colorado and is linked to the notorious Tren de Aragua gang.” Banks wrote that the individual also faces a federal immigration charge.
Edwards said Ospino-Morillo hasn’t been documented as a Tren de Aragua member by Aurora police but that Aurora’s policies for documenting gang members may not be the same as those of federal law enforcement.
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