Javier Delgado-Cordoba, 29, is accused of assaulting a woman in the back of his car in Arvada in January, police officials said this week. Delgado-Cordoba turned himself in Monday.

Investigators said the assault happened after a woman and her boyfriend requested an Uber to pick them up at a bar in the Denver area and take them to a home in Arvada. The couple was picked up by a driver named Javier in a 2023 Kia K5 sedan.

When they arrived at their destination, the woman’s boyfriend got out of the car to unlock the home, which is when Delgado-Cordoba got into the back seat. When the boyfriend returned, Delgado-Cordoba got back in the driver’s seat and drove away with the woman still inside.

She was later dropped off at a business in another city, Arvada police said, and employees at the business helped her get in touch with family.

Police identified Delgado-Cordoba as a suspect through his ride-hail profile, social media and DNA. He drove for Uber for about a year and had given more than 1,000 rides and may have used other vehicles, according to the department.

ā€œWe recognize that these types of crimes are deeply personal and difficult to report,ā€ Arvada Police Chief Ed Brady said in a statement. ā€œOur goal in sharing this information is to ensure that anyone who may have been affected knows they are not alone and that support and resources are available.ā€

The case comes less than a year after Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a bill that would have placed new safety and reporting requirements on ride-hail companies such as Uber and Lyft. At the time, Polis acknowledged the need for tighter regulations but said he was influenced to reject the bill after Uber threatened to leave the stateĀ if the bill passed.

Deldago-Cordoba is in custody at the Jefferson County jail on $20,000 bail. He is set to appear in court May 20.

Anyone who believes they may be a victim can contact their local law enforcement agency or the Arvada police tip line at 720-898-7171 and reference case AR26001904.

The two teens, who were not identified by police because they are juveniles, were arrested on charges of false reporting of explosives and false reporting of an active shooter, both felonies, and interference with staff or faculty of an educational facility, a misdemeanor, the said Wednesday evening.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers from across metro Denver responded to Adams City High, 7200 Quebec Parkway, around 1 p.m. after someone called 911 to report a bomb at the school and the presence of an active shooter, with wounded people supposedly inside the facility, authorities said.

Officials put the school on lockdown, with students and staff secured inside classrooms. Adams City High currently enrolls 1,422 students, according to state records.

Police entered the school, going room to room to clear the building and look for a shooter and any victims, officials said.

Once inside, officers found “what appeared to be a blood trail in several areas of the school,” Commerce City police said.

After searching the school for two hours, police determined there were no victims and no real threat. But they found and arrested two students “who were covered in what looked like fake blood — the same substance officers had encountered in parts of the building,” police said.

ā€œFor many, calls of this nature are their worst nightmare,” Commerce City police Chief Darrel Guadnola said in a statement. “Whether a first responder, a parent, a teacher or a student — most will never forget this day. The notion that this call may have been part of a prank is highly disturbing and pulled valuable law enforcement resources away from real emergencies in the Denver metro.ā€

No students were injured during the lockdown, but one experienced an unrelated medical issue and was transported to a hospital by paramedics as a precaution, . That student was later released to their parents.

District officials also noted that social media posts shared by people who weren’t employees of the district spread inaccurate information that may have alarmed families.

“Adams 14 encourages the public to avoid sharing unverified information on social media during incidents, as it can unintentionally increase fear and confusion for families, divert law enforcement resources and place additional strain on those working to protect students,” Adams 14 officials said in their statement.

Law enforcement officers from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, Colorado State Patrol, Westminster Police Department, Thornton Police Department, RTD Police Department, Arvada Police Department, Aurora Police Department, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded to the school.

David Ajiri, 25, turned himself in at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office on Monday after a warrant was issued for his arrest more than two weeks earlier, on Feb. 20, according to court records.

Ajiri was arrested on suspicion of extortion, posting private images/harassment and posting private images for pecuniary gain, according to Jefferson County court records.

Investigators have identified one victim but believe there are many more who have not yet been identified or who have not yet come forward, according to a news release from the Arvada Police Department. The man targeted women and girls as young as 14 and had been active since at least 2018, police said.

“Evidence indicates Ajiri targeted women nationwide, not only in Arvada,” officials stated in the release.

Police believe Ajiri used dating apps and social media to contact women and convince them to send intimate photos and videos for money, according to the release. He frequently sent altered or fake transaction receipts to make it appear he had paid other women and allegedly posed as women who claimed to have been paid by him before to build trust with his victims, police said.

The victims were never paid, and investigators believe Ajiri threatened to send their intimate images or videos to friends and family unless they continued to provide sexual content, money or both, police said.

“In many cases, Ajiri reportedly sent victims a detailed bulleted list of specific image and video requests with explicit instructions,” officials stated. “Evidence also indicates that Ajiri sold some of the content online.”

“Detectives understand that these crimes are deeply personal and often traumatic, and they encourage victims to come forward so investigators can fully understand the scope of this case and pursue justice,” the statement continued.

Arvada police said aliases used by Ajiri include:

• Anthony
• Anthony Matthews
• Adam Russell
• Brad Manning
• Brandon Cress
• Brandon Ali
• Christan Morris
• Cristian Ortiz
• Damon A
• Danny Rodriguez
• Dante
• Dave E
• Dave Jordan
• David Andrews
• David E
• David Jaeger
• DJay
• Dylan M
• Dylan Michaels
• Jay
• Jay A
• Kels
• Kelsi
• Kens
• Kensi
• Kensy
• Kenzie
• Lexi
• Mckenzie
• McKenzie Jensenn
• Mike Brandon
• Mike Green

Police also identified several social media accounts believed to belong to Ajiri, including:

• brandc428, on Instagram
• brandoncress87, on Instagram
• chris.morris98, on Snapchat
• crort786, on Instagram
• cro6788, on Instagram
• dajiri8535, on Snapchat davidandrews2054, on Instagram
• dmol678, on Instagram
• kenslove3, on Snapchat
• mikebrown867, on Snapchat
• mikegreen876, on Instagram
• mikegbrandon0, on Instagram
• nbalifer23, on Instagram
• oc65ks, on Instagram

Anyone who has communicated with Ajiri under the names or on the accounts listed above, or who believes they may have been a victim of sextortion connected to this investigation, is asked to contact the Arvada Police Department at 720-898-7171 and reference case AR25004692.

Ajiri is next scheduled to appear in court on March 19 for a hearing on bail, court records show.

The teenager was last seen at 6:45 a.m. Sunday in the 6700 block of West 51st Avenue, CBI officials said in a .

Officials said she was found safe in an .

Chloe Rose Castro, a 29-year-old woman from Lakewood, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, a felony, according to Jefferson County court records. The plea deal dropped a second child sex assault charge and one count of internet luring of a child from her case, court records show.

The woman faces an open-ended, or ā€œindeterminate,ā€ sentence that will last from a minimum of four years to a maximum of life in prison when she is sentenced on April 2, according to a from the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

Castro was arrested in November 2024 after the victim’s parents found “evidence of a sexual relationship” and reported Castro to the Arvada Police Department, prosecutors said in the release.

The parents told police that they found inappropriate social media messages between their child and Castro, according to an arrest affidavit. Police said the student attended an online school at the time, but he often met Castro behind the Apex Center — a recreation center in Arvada.

The unidentified student, who was younger than 15 when the assault happened, said Castro “really understood him” and that “she was the only person he could trust.” He said they had plans to move to California and New Mexico to “create a new life together,” according to the affidavit.

Castro and the student met outside of school for the first time in May 2024, police stated in the affidavit. They often met in a spot behind the recreation center, where they would kiss and touch each other, according to the document. They also met in Castro’s office at least once.

The two would text and exchange messages on Instagram, including nude photos, according to the arrest affidavit. They deleted the messages nightly out of fear of being caught, police said.

No other victims came forward after Castro’s arrest, according to the DA’s office.

The teen was considered endangered because he requires constant supervision and is unable to take care of himself, officials said in a missing juvenile alert.

He was reported missing at 11 a.m. Friday and found safe as of 12:50 p.m. Saturday, Arvada police said.

Officer Cody Haggard, who joined the department in 2024 and served District 4 patrol, was arrested on suspicion of simple assault, the release said. Details about the arrest were not provided by police.

Haggard was placed in an “off-line assignment” where he will remain while the case goes through the judicial process, the news release said.

The Denver Police Department’s administrative review of the incident will start once the criminal case is adjudicated, the release said. The Arvada Police Department is conducting the criminal investigation.

“The Denver Police Department is committed to transparency and accountability,” the release said. “When a Denver Police officer is arrested, DPD works to proactively share information in a timely manner, when possible. As with all arrests, the suspect is innocent until proven guilty.”

Brian Seitz, 38, will also serve a mandatory three years on parole after his prison sentence, according to a news release from the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office. He pleaded guilty in September to negligent death of an at-risk person, admitting that he was responsible for his mother’s care and criminally negligent in his lack of care for her, including failure to treat bed sores, maintain hygiene and delaying necessary medical care.

His girlfriend, Laura Pratts, 55, pleaded guilty to negligent death of an at-risk person on Nov. 14, the news release stated. She will be sentenced at a later date.

Sheryl Seitz, 59, was found on April 29, 2024, in an Airbnb residence in Arvada after paramedics were called on a report that an adult woman needed urgent medical care. Paramedics found her lying on an air mattress in the garage and unable to speak, the district attorney’s news release stated.

Doctors at a hospital discovered extensive injuries, including hip fractures and advanced bedsores. Sheryl Seitz died 21 hours after arriving at the hospital.

Jefferson County forensic pathologist Dr. John Carver ruled Sheryl Seitz’s death a homicide with the cause being complications of neglect that stemmed from prolonged immobility due to rheumatoid arthritis and neck fractures, along with additional complications including decubitus ulcers, maggot infestation and burrowing, cellulitis and sepsis, according to the DA’s news release.

Sheryl Seitz suffered from severe arthritis and chronic pain and she required full assistance from others to move. Brian Seitz had been a paid caregiver through state funding for her since Nov. 1, 2017, and Pratts had been a paid caregiver since Sept. 1, 2019. Both were contracted through a home health agency to provide daily care. the district attorney’s news release stated.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office previously reported that the three had been living in an RV storage lot before moving Sheryl Seitz to the Airbnb and that Sheryl Seitz’s RV did not have running water or a bed and only a space heater for warmth.

In line with other would-be patrons outside the Lower Downtown spot, she claimed to be a 25-year-old woman named Shaelene. But the bouncer wasn’t buying it. He kept the girl’s fake ID and told her she wasn’t getting in.

As the girl walked away, she pulled a gun from her jacket and fired back at the crowd outside the bar. Five people were shot; they all survived. Surveillance footage showed the girl’s face as she waited in line, and captured her pulling out the gun and firing.

But Denver police still needed to figure out who she was. They found the man she’d been in line with; he claimed they’d just met and that he’d been hoping for a one-night stand. Two days after the shooting, with Metro Denver Crime Stoppers, a nonprofit organization that pays cash — typically up to $2,000 — for anonymous tips that lead to arrests.

Within a day, 10 separate tipsters named Keanna Rosenburgh as the shooter. They provided the police with her age, height and home address, according to an affidavit. Police detectives then matched Rosenburgh’s driver’s license photo to the surveillance footage. She was charged and ultimately pleaded guilty in the shooting.

The case is one of hundreds in which tips to helped lead authorities to culprits. The 49-year-old Crime Stoppers organization — founded in 1976 by an Albuquerque police detective and established in Denver in 1981 — has become a key tool for law enforcement across Colorado’s Front Range in an age of widespread surveillance.

“They’ve proven to be invaluable,” Denver police Cmdr. Matt Clark said.

In Denver in 2024, Crime Stoppers passed along 215 tips about fugitives, Clark said, and 555 tips related to Denver homicides and non-fatal shootings.

As a whole, the organization — which works with police departments across the metro area — took in 4,000 tips in 2024 and paid out $32,000 in rewards, said Jennifer Evans, co-president of the board.Ā About 75% of the award money was connected to Denver cases, with $24,000 awarded across 47 cases, she said.

The tipline has become a “core investigative strategy” for Denver detectives, Clark said, enabling officers to quickly identify suspects from now nearly ubiquitous surveillance cameras. At least 50 arrests in 2024 were tied to Crime Stoppers tips, Evans said.

The anonymous tips are a starting point, and detectives often need to do significant follow-up investigation to corroborate the tips with evidence that is admissible in court, Clark said.

“We are simultaneously doing traditional investigative methods,” he said. “But having someone in the community who knows the person, sees the photo and says, ‘That’s my neighbor, my coworker, my family member’ — it creates a tremendous amount of efficiency, accountability for the offender, and justice for the victim.”

Over the last five years, Metro Denver Crime Stoppers has received 22,000 tips, awarded $250,000 in reward money and contributed to at least 470 arrests, Evans said.

Since 1981, Metro Denver Crime Stoppers has paid out nearly $1.4 million in awards — an average of about $32,000 per year — and its tips have led to more than 3,300 arrests, the organization says.

The organization raises funds through donations and its , in which the group collects documents to be professionally shredded and accepts donations from people who stop by to dispose of those documents. The shredding companies will sometimes donate their services as well, Evans said.

Reward amounts vary. While the standard reward advertised is up to $2,000 per arrest, the nonprofit organization might break that money up among multiple tipsters, and the board also considers the value of the particular information provided when determining the reward amount, Evans said.

“It also matters if it is a sensitive crime, like crimes against a child, an animal, we will pay differently,” she said.

CrimeStoppers’ volunteer board, which is the sole entity that decides how reward money is paid out, includes seven community members who work in various industries, including security, finance, construction and education, as well a Denver police detective who acts as the liaison between the nonprofit and the police agency.

Evans declined to say how many tipsters collected award money in the Rosenburgh case, citing the need for tipsters’ anonymity.

Metro Denver Crime Stoppers credits its anonymous process for much of its effectiveness. Tipsters are paid if the information they provide leads to an arrest — not a conviction, like some other programs — and they stay anonymous throughout the process. Tipsters collect the award money by presenting unique codes at particular banks.

Not all of the reward money that is awarded is actually collected. In 2020, about 40% of reward money went unclaimed, according to an annual report.

“Iā€™m not convinced it is the money that is motivating people to come forward,” Clark said. “I think it is the anonymity more that drives traffic to Crime Stoppers, and their credibility over the last four decades. …I generally feel people are doing it for the right reasons, and there is a collateral benefit where they will collect the reward.”

Crime Stoppers will offer higher rewards in cases when particular donors come forward. Often, the donors are family members who hope that more money will bring in quality tips, Evans said. Clark noted that the higher rewards can generate more media attention, which can reinvigorate a case.

It also gives grieving family members a concrete way to help with the investigation, he added.

“They feel helplessness, a lot of times, with a lack of resolution, answers, even with info coming from the police department, so this is a way of advocating for their loved one, a victim, a coworker, to say, ‘We want to help,'” Clark said.

Evans declined to share the largest reward paid by the agency, but offered rewards have topped hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The organization offered a $100,000 reward for information in the 2011 killing of , and a $125,000 reward in the 2008 murder of Adams County prosecutor Sean May, both of which remain unsolved.

The Crime Stoppers’ process casts a wide net and an influx of tips can send investigators down the wrong path. In the LoDo bar shooting in Denver, the police detective also investigated five tips that wrongly identified different people as the shooter, according to Rosenburgh’s affidavit.

“For every helpful tip we receive, we get calls that have little or nothing to do with the case,” said David Snelling, a spokesman for the Arvada Police Department, who said the department uses Crime Stoppers several times a year.

The reward money has at times led to disputes. The organization promised a $100,000 for information in the 2005 killing of Denver police Detective Donald Young, then reduced the award to $50,000 and paid out to a handful of tipsters on the case — but not to the killer’s grandmother, who led her grandson into a store in Mexico where he was apprehended, because she did not give her information directly to Crime Stoppers.

In 2011, a man then in prison unsuccessfully sued in an attempt to collect the entire $100,000 reward in the killing of Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams after the man was awarded only a portion of the total amount for his role in the case.

And in 2014, a man who was wrongly accused of being a stalker sued both Crime Stoppers and Nancy Grace after a selfie of his was featured in a Crime Stoppers bulletin and on the national news show as the suspected stalker. That lawsuit was settled, court records show.

During a Wednesday morning news conference, officials with the Offices of U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service announced the largest meth bust in state history and described the work that went into the seizure.

Fifteen people were indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. One of the defendants, Marco Antonio De Silva Lara, is facing “the so-called drug kingpin charge as an alleged leader of a drug trafficking organization,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Despite calling a news conference and convening a gaggle of reporters, none of the agencies took questions from the media.

ā€œThis investigation had it all,” DEA Special Agent In Charge Dave Olesky said during the news conference. “From undercover activity to a series of complex wiretaps on targets of the investigation.ā€

Olesky described the operation as a “massive undertaking” spanning two years and multiple agencies. The bust was the result of wire tapping, undercover operations, about 75 search warrants and “extensive” surveillance,” he said.

Defendants named in the indictment include: De Silva Lara, Sergio Ivan Arce Lopez, Juan Luis Cabrera Saucedo, Luis Enrique Lopez Lopez, Rigoberto Aranda, Erik Alejandro Benitez Chavez, Robert Shane Gerstner, Joseph Ricardo Menzor, William Joseph Rollins, Brittney Pierce, Francisco Javier Armenta Barraza, Jamie Cash Hoover, Cesar Andres Huizar Guerra and Trenton Anthony Thompson. Eleven of those defendants are in federal custody. The remaining defendants are believed to be in Mexico, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The operation consisted of multiple drug busts beginning in December 2024 when agents seized 96 pounds of meth from a member of the alleged organization on a Greyhound Bus in Vail. In February, officials seized 101 pounds of meth and a half kilogram of fentanyl powder from another alleged organization member on “a highway in Colorado.” In April, more than 700 pounds of meth was taken from a Lakewood residence along with freezers, propane tanks and other equipment used to make meth.

Investigators said they found thousands of packages of meth hidden among containers of the fruit chayote.

In August, officials took nearly 50 pounds of meth from an Arvada residence.

All 15 defendants face drug charges carrying the potential sentence of no less than 10 years and up to life in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Four of the defendants are charged with money laundering.

In addition to the DEA, FBI and IRS, the Homeland Security Investigations and ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations are also involved in the investigation along with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and the Arvada Police Department.

The Transnational Organized Crime and Money Laundering Section of the United States Attorneyā€™s Office for the District of Colorado is handling the prosecutions, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

ā€œThis successful investigation boasts the largest methamphetamine seizure in Colorado history and intercepted more than 1,000 pounds of methamphetamine before it could be distributed into our community,ā€ said United States Attorney for the District of Colorado Peter McNeilly. ā€œThis investigation showcases what we are able to accomplish when we combine the resources, tools, and expertise of federal agencies with the passion, experience, and sweat equity of local law enforcement officers.ā€