A Queens supermarket owner was convicted Friday in Brooklyn Federal Court for a months-long campaign of kidnapping and sexual torture against rivals who mocked his self-proclaimed title.
Abu Chowdhury, 36, was found guilty of three kidnapping counts and three conspiracy-to-kidnap counts after a jury heard how he grabbed three men off the street in 2023 to punish them for doubting his status as the “King of New York,” federal prosecutors said. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The verdict came one day after the jury returned convictions, capping a case that exposed how a petty social media feud spiraled into calculated violence. Assistant US Attorney Joshua Tannen told the court that Chowdhury orchestrated the attacks to “protect and promote his [reputation]” and prove to his community that he deserved the title he had given himself.
The spree began with a TikTok argument. A 41-year-old man had taunted Chowdhury online, saying he “didn’t own the streets,” prosecutors said. On March 27, 2023, Chowdhury and accomplices seized the man near 181st Street and Hillside Avenue, beating him and threatening his life during a car ride. The crew then forced him to stand naked in the street while they filmed him, and finally drugged him with a sedative, leaving him to wake up bruised in a hospital.
Two months later, in May 2023, Chowdhury struck again. He kidnapped two more men off the street, this time allegedly because they had insulted his then-girlfriend Iffat Lubna, 27, prosecutors said. Chowdhury brought both victims to a Long Island City hotel, where he sexually violated one with a rod and coerced the second man into beating the first under threat of his own assault. Lubna allegedly participated in that attack.
Lubna had already been found guilty of the latter two kidnappings by a jury in April. Associates of Chowdhury were also convicted, prosecutors said, though their names and specific roles were not detailed in the government’s announcement.
United States Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. Issued a statement following the verdict. “The acts committed by the defendant, along with his co-defendants and co-conspirators, were brutal, senseless, and cannot be tolerated in a civilized society,” he said. “Our Office is committed to investigating and prosecuting violent crime that endangers our community.”
The case revealed a pattern of escalating dominance displays, with Chowdhury using sexual humiliation, filmed degradation and forced complicity to terrorize those who challenged his self-image. Each kidnapping built on the methods of the last, prosecutors showed, with the hotel attack introducing physical violation and manipulated violence between victims.
Chowdhury’s sentencing date has not yet been set by the court.