5 charged in Queens with drug-related offenses

Five Queens residents were named Thursday in an indictment charging a conspiracy to distribute heroin and to kidnap and assault a member of their drug ring who failed to deliver a package of heroin that arrived from Ecuador at Kennedy Airport, officials said.

The man they kidnapped on Feb. 7, 2015 had been arrested the day before after he picked up the heroin, prosecutors said. He was released by authorities that same day, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District in Brooklyn.

Prosecutors did not identify the kidnap victim, nor would they say why he was released on the same day he was arrested. His female companion was kidnapped with him, prosecutors said. He was able to escape from his captors and she was later released, prosecutors said.

Charged were Gonzalo Erick Aguilar Vargas, 23; Hillary Calle, 23; Kiancin Lee, 23; Monica Vargas, 44, and Ricky Vargas, 24, according to a news release from prosecutors.

The conspiracy to distribute heroin, up to one kilogram, took place in the Eastern District between June 1, 2014 and Feb. 6,2015, the indictment said.

The defendants face maximum federal sentences of life in prison and minimum sentences of 10 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charges, prosecutors said.

The Eastern District contains the counties of Kings, Nassau, Queens, Richmond, and Suffolk