‘Finch-smuggling kingpin’ gets prison time in New York

KIFI

Published February 9, 2023 5:18 PM

By JENNIFER PELTZ
Associated Press

A man who repeatedly admitted scheming to smuggle finches from Guyana into New York for birdsong competitions has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Insaf Ali was stopped at John F. Kennedy Airport in January 2022 with two packs of hair curlers that smugglers use to slip the small birds past customs officials. He pleaded guilty last summer to conspiring to import wildlife illegally. He’d gotten probation after a 2018 guilty plea to smuggling finches into JFK. This time, Ali pleaded for leniency by saying that his misdeeds were propelled by his attachment to birds and to the songbird contests that have long been a Caribbean pastime.

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