Queens couple orchestrated brutal kidnapping conspiracy: feds

A Queens supermarket owner and his wife orchestrated a pair of bizarre, brutal kidnappings targeting members of their Bengali community, including the torture and sodomy of one of their victims, federal prosecutors allege. The feds on Thursday hit Abu Chowdhury, 34, his wife, Iffat Lubna, 24, and four other defendants with kidnapping conspiracy and kidnapping charges. A seventh suspect remains at large.

They targeted their first victim on March 27 of last year as he walked along 181st St. and Hillside Ave. in Jamaica, federal prosecutors allege.

Chowdhury allegedly forced the victim into a Honda SUV and started beating him as an accomplice drove them around Queens. Chowdhury, who co-owns the BD Fresh Supermarket in Jamaica, forced the victim to get out of the SUV and stand naked in the street while he took cell phone video, according to the feds. He kept in contact with several accomplices — Syed Rubel Ahmed, Shahed Alom, Anzu Khan and Sultana Razia — throughout the night, with each of them either beating or threatening the victim during several points of the ordeal.

The victim begged for water, so they gave him some, but laced it with a sedative, prosecutors alleged. He eventually lost consciousness and woke up in a hospital the next day, according to prosecutors. At arraignment in Brooklyn Federal Court on Thursday, Razia’s lawyer, Sarah Sacks, said the victim had been harassing her client for five years.

Sacks said Razia only attacked the victim in self-defense, “after their so-called victim grabbed her and pulled her by the hair. ” Assistant U. S.

Attorney Vincent Chiappini countered that she asked one of the kidnappers to hold his phone steady so she could screen-record him as he was stripped naked and mocked. “She didn’t feel guilt. She didn’t feel remorse … She posted a video of this kidnapping to social media,” he said.

“I would not ever call it self defense if you appear at the kidnapping of the victim. ” In the second incident, Chowdhury and Lubna abducted another man on May 11, after she lured the victim to meet her outside a restaurant near 72nd St. and Broadway in Woodside, prosecutors allege.

Chowdhury forced the victim into a minivan and started beating him and he, his wife and an accomplice took the victim to a hotel —where Chowdhury sodomized the victim — according to the feds. At one point, Chowdhury called the victim’s father to demand a $20,000 ransom, making sure the dad could hear his son’s screams, the feds allege. The dad didn’t pay.

“Chowdhury did not try to call the victim’s father again nor did he ask the Victim to name someone else who could procure $20,000 for a ransom,” prosecutors wrote in court filings. “Rather, the defendants chose to continue torturing the victim, suggesting that their overruling motivations were to exact pain and humiliation on the victim. ” The kidnappers shoved pills in the victim’s mouth to make him feel drowsy and finally left him tied up and blindfolded in an abandoned house on the third day of the ordeal, prosecutors said.

The victim chewing through his bonds, broke a window and pleaded with nearby residents to call 911. Chowdhury and Lubna were indicted for the first alleged kidnapping back in July. The court unsealed a superseding indictment against them and the other defendants Thursday.

They’re still free on $250,000 and $100,000 bond until their next appearance before District Judge Nina Morrison, with federal prosecutors seeking to have their bonds revoked. Lubna’s lawyer declined comment and Chowdhury’s did not return a message seeking comment. Khan and Alom were ordered held without bail Thursday while Ahmad was released to home detention on $100,000 bond.

Razia was also released to home detention, on $50,000 bond. .