Insaf Ali had a reputation as a "kingpin" smuggler in New York, federal prosecutors alleged. When he was arrested in January 2022 at John F. Kennedy International Airport before boarding a flight to Guyana, a search of his luggage allegedly revealed items essential to his unique trade: two packages of hair curlers.

The plastic cylinders, a few inches across, are just the right size to smuggle finches. The small birds are commonly smuggled from Guyana into the United States, where they are prized in birdsong competitions, according to prosecutors.

Ali was planning to do just that when he returned from Guyana, prosecutors alleged. They cast Ali, who pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to illegally import wildlife, as a leader in the lucrative trade of finches between Guyana and New York. He'd previously received two years of probation for smuggling live finches hidden in hair curlers in December 2018, according to court records, but allegedly paid a co-conspirator to smuggle 35 more into the United States in April 2021 before being arrested in January 2022.

"He is infamous in his community as one of New York's finch-smuggling kingpins," prosecutors alleged in a sentencing memo.

On Thursday, Ali was sentenced in New York federal court to one year and one day in prison.

Christine Delince, Ali's defense attorney, said in a sentencing memo that poor health drove Ali to smuggle in birds from Guyana for emotional support. In a statement to the judge, Ali pledged to "make amends for my life changing error." Attorneys representing Ali did not respond to a request for comment.

Birdsong competitions are a popular hobby in Brazil, Guyana and Suriname, where trained birds are judged on the quality of their melodies and how many distinct "songs" they can sing in a set amount of time, according to a 2018 study cited by prosecutors. The demand for illegally caught wild songbirds, which sing more aggressively than locally bred birds, fuels a lucrative industry that has decimated some species of finches, researchers wrote.

Ali had participated in birdsong competitions as a child in Guyana and, after emigrating to the United States in 1984, sought out finches and competitions for emotional support, his defense attorney said. Competitions held by the Guyanese diaspora in New York took place on weekend mornings in a park in Queens, where participants and referees gathered around cages to watch two birds sing, according to a 2021 NPR report on the tradition.

"They just say this reminds them of home," freelance reporter Kimon de Greef told NPR. "This is what their parents did in Guyana when they were growing up."

Participants commonly place bets on the singing competitions, prosecutors alleged, and winning finches can sell for more than $10,000. Finches from Guyana are believed to sing better than those in the United States and are seen as more valuable, investigators wrote.

In her sentencing memo, Ali's defense attorney said he was moved by a love of birds, not money, and she included letters from members of several Guyanese and Islamic associations in New York who wrote that Ali had donated generously to community organizations and was "a person of integrity."

Ali was first charged alongside another defendant in May 2018 after they were examined in customs at JFK airport after arriving from Guyana in April that year. Ali was found to be carrying 12 finches kept in hair curlers hidden in his socks, court documents alleged. He pleaded guilty to smuggling in August of that year and was sentenced to a fine and two years of probation.

Investigators then tied Ali to a second smuggling case in April 2021. Ali allegedly paid for a co-conspirator to fly with him to Guyana and smuggle 35 finches back to New York, hidden beneath his pant legs and in the lining of a suit and "held there so tightly that [the finches] could make no sound." The co-conspirator was caught with all 35 finches upon arrival in New York, prosecutors alleged in Ali's indictment. In Ali's sentencing memo, prosecutors wrote that five of the finches died during the journey.

In December 2021, shortly before he was arrested at JFK airport, Ali told a second co-conspirator he planned to travel to Guyana in January and asked for a courier to carry finches into the U.S., prosecutors alleged.

Ali committed his second offense amid poor mental and physical health, his attorney said. He pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in August.

"I indeed exercised bad judgment," Ali wrote in a January letter to a judge. "I should have known better, but I erred."