The family of a drug smuggler pinched at JFK Airport is suing the federal government, arguing that authorities failed to extract a massive payload of heroin from his digestive tract before he was sent to federal lock-up — so he died from an overdose when the dope burst in his gut.

Felix Antonio De La Rosa Alvarez was passing through the Queens airport on Feb. 23, 2018 from the Dominican Republican carrying 70 heroin pellets in his stomach when he was arrested by agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the Brooklyn federal court suit says.

The agents kept him in an airport medical facility until he passed 33 pellets, which took days — then shipped him off to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn with 37 pellets still squirreled away in his bowels, the suit charges.

On March 3, authorities found De La Rosa, a 55-year-old father of six, dead in his cell from an apparent overdose.

In a lawsuit filed against the US government, De La Rosa’s daughter argues that her father should have been given laxatives to help him flush out the pellets, or that they should have been surgically removed.

The suit also names a Homeland Security agent who handled De La Rosa’s case and medical personnel who looked after him while he was in custody.

De La Rosa was a citizen of the Dominican Republic at the time of his death and ran a factory and a convenience store there, the lawsuit states.

After De La Rosa’s death, the family argues that it fell on hard times financially — they had to sell the store and lost their home to foreclosure.

“While in the US, Mr. De La Rosa was treated with callous disregard by the defendants charged with caring for him,” the lawsuit states. “In the Dominican Republic, Mr. De La Rosa was the beloved patriarch of a large family.”

De La Rosa’s family seeks unspecified damages for his death.

Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.