Finch smuggling kingpin gets jail time for smuggling birds into New York to compete

A man who has repeatedly admitted to planning to smuggle finches from Guyana to New York to compete in birding competitions was sentenced on Thursday to a year and a day in jail.

It was the second time Insaf Ali had been convicted in Brooklyn federal court for a bird-trafficking offense and he vowed it would be his last.

“I will stay away from the birds,” Ali promised in a video he presented to the court, “because it’s a nuisance.”

His attorney, Christine Delins, said after the trial that she was disappointed by the verdict, after she and Ali detailed his lifelong attachment to birds, fraught with personal and medical problems.

Ali, 62, pleaded guilty last summer to conspiring to smuggle wildlife. In January 2022, he was stopped at John F. Kennedy Airport with two packs of curlers that smugglers use to let small birds past customs officers.

Authorities said he had previously been arrested in 2018 with curlers stuffed with finches in his socks at JFK Airport. In that case, he pleaded guilty to smuggling and was sentenced to two years’ probation and a $7,800 fine.

Songbird competitions have been entertainment in the Caribbean for centuries. Fans judge animals based on factors such as how many times they chirp or sing.

But because the birds sometimes fetch thousands of dollars, the contests fuel the wildlife trade that Latin American and US authorities have tried to crack down on.

Stuffed in curlers and hidden to avoid detection, finches sometimes die while being smuggled into the US, and US Customs and Border Protection are concerned that such smuggling could spread bird diseases.

In a January 31 memo, prosecutors argued that Ali deserved a “significant” jail sentence, calling him “one of New York’s kingpin smuggling finches.”

Delins asked for leniency. In a January 26 memo, she said Ali was “incredibly remorseful” for the crime of loving finches, which dates back to his childhood in Guyana and has given him solace in many personal difficulties.

“His actions were not only related to money,” she wrote, saying that birds are part of him and part of his culture.