A Denver jury indicted seventeen people in connection to a car theft ring targeting the airport, the Denver District Attorney's Office announced on Monday, December 9. The indictment contains 222 charges, including over 100 counts of auto theft, more than a dozen counts of drug possession and distribution, violations of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act, and various other charges.
The defendants are accused of stealing at least 190 vehicles worth $9.5 million and taking them to Mexico, where the vehicles were given to members of the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl. The drugs were then allegedly smuggled back to the United States and sold, including in Denver.
"It is something akin to what we might see in a Hollywood movie," says Dave Olesky, assistant special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Denver. "These weren't simply individuals looking to steal a car for a joyride. This was a multimillion-dollar international enterprise which robbed far too many here in the state of Colorado."
Eleven of the seventeen people indicted in the operation are currently in custody, according to the DA's office. Investigators believe the other six are located in Colorado, Texas or Mexico, including the alleged ringleader: Joaquin Orozco-Ponce. Officials say his bond has been set at $10 million, and they're working with the U.S. Department of Justice to track him down.
The other individuals named in the indictment are Miguel Arroyo-Hernandez, Luis Arroyo-Llamas, Vania Bauer-Rivera, Pavel Burboa-Aguilar, Ashley Carrasco, Oscar Delgadillo-Chavez, Francisco Dominguez-Cruz, Jaime Flores, Brian Gamboa-Rodriguez, Juan Herrera, Leah Jones, Jannet Salazar, Emmanuel Sanchez, Daniel Sotelo, Javier Tapia-Lopez, and Yulian Zamarron-Baylon.
Nearly 200 vehicle thefts between September 2022 and February 2024 are linked to the crime ring, with the "overwhelming majority" of the vehicles taken from Denver International Airport or surrounding hotels. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, car thefts at the airport increased by 72 percent between 2021 and 2023.
Officials believe the criminals targeted Denver because DIA is one of the only major international airports in the region, attracting travelers from neighboring states who drive to the airport and leave their vehicles parked there for long periods of time when they go on trips.
"Oftentimes, these vehicles were taken from DIA or surrounding airport hotels and were transported to El Paso and then into Mexico before the owner had returned from a trip and even noticed their vehicle had been taken," says Alison Foley, a prosecutor with the Denver DA's Office.
The thieves targeted pickup trucks and SUVs that are desired by drug trafficking organizations because they can be modified to support ballistic armor and be mounted with firearms, Olesky says. Last year, Ford F-150 trucks were Colorado's most stolen vehicles.
Olesky says the Sinaloa Cartel linked to the operation is "one of the most powerful Mexico-based organizations" responsible for trafficking cocaine and fentanyl into the United States. Some of the seventeen people indicted in the car theft ring are believed to be directly tied to the cartel, while others are said to be local Colorado residents who were responsible for breaking into the cars or driving them to Texas or Mexico to later be traded for drugs.
This isn't the first vehicle theft ring discovered in Denver. In October, David Nava-Delgado was sentenced to twenty years in prison for leading a group that stole dozens of vehicles from the Denver airport and car dealerships in 2022 and 2023. The group used some of the stolen vehicles as battering rams, smashing through the fronts of metro businesses to steal ATMs and items including vaping devices, according to the DA's office.
Authorities connected David Nava-Delgado's group to over fifty vehicle thefts and more than thirty burglaries or attempted burglaries.
Denver International Airport/17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office
However, vehicle thefts dropped 28 percent statewide from 2023 to 2024, according to the Colorado Metropolitan Auto Theft Task Force. In the metro area, year-over-year vehicle thefts decreased by 30 percent; at Denver International Airport, they decreased by 55 percent.
Denver District Attorney Beth McCann says her office has filed 1,038 vehicle theft cases so far this year and filed 1,026 cases last year, compared to only 682 in 2019.
"These indictments should send the message that people who steal cars in Denver will be caught and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," McCann says. "I'm confident that the arrests of these seventeen defendants will drive the number of stolen cars even lower.
"These people will be held responsible and accountable for the crimes they have committed," she concludes.
