Jackson Heights fire damaged apartment building was captured by the Bloods

THE CITY

Members of the Bloods gang took over a Brooklyn-based fire clean-up company, using violence and extortion to profit off damaged buildings and inferno victims, federal prosecutors allege.

Their targets included a Queens apartment building where a 2021 blaze displaced nearly 500 people in Jackson Heights. Dozens of former tenants at that address have asserted their belongings were burglarized, as reported by THE CITY in March. 

In an indictment late last month, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York alleged gang members first gained control of First Response Cleaning Corp. in 2019, and then used the company — which secures and cleans up buildings after blazes — to extort competitors and muscle the industry with violence and threats.

The fire company has worked on buildings across New York City.

Tenants there told THE CITY that residents had been barred from entering the building but later found jewelry, money and other valuables missing from their apartments when they were allowed a virtual tour via video conference. 

The owners of the Jackson Heights building, Kedex Properties, hired First Response with a $24 million contract to clean up the building, the Queens Chronicle reported last year.

Kedex did not respond to calls for comment.

While the feds in their indictment called the alleged racket a “criminal enterprise,” none of the charges include burglary or theft of items from buildings.

Andrew Sokolof Diaz, is a resident of Jackson Heights building and president of the 89th Street Tenants Unidos Association, said that First Response presented themselves as both a security company and a fire restoration company, and prevented tenants from entering their homes.

“It was just a bad vibe,” he said. “It seemed like something was going on — from the behavior with some of the tenants from just the first night. They were very harsh and menacing with us.”