A Guyanese man living in Connecticut man tried smuggling nearly three dozen live finches from Guyana through JFK Airport so he could sell them for use in high-stakes bird-singing competitions in New York, according to the New York Post citing federal officials yesterday.
The report said that Francis Gurahoo, 39, was arrested on Sunday after he flew into the Queens airport aboard Caribbean Airlines flight BW 526 from Georgetown, Guyana.
The reports said that US Customs and Border Protection officials found 34 live finches, each hidden inside a plastic hair-curler, inside of Gurahoo’s carry-on when he was selected for a customs examination, according to a criminal complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.
Gurahoo admitted, the report said, “that he had intended to smuggle the birds inside of his carry-on luggage” and that he planned to sell the finches for about US$3,000 each, making for a payday of about US$102,000, the complaint said.
“The defendant further stated that he knew what he did was wrong, but was motivated by potential financial gain,” the court documents added, according to the New York Post.
In recent years, according to the complaint, US Customs and Border Protection working at JFK Airport have stopped numerous people trying to illegally traffic the small seed-eating birds into the US from Guyana.
Special Agent Gabriel Harper of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who assisted in the Gurahoo probe, stated in the complaint that “individuals keep finches to enter them in singing contests in Brooklyn and Queens.”
“In such contests, often conducted in public areas like parks, two finches sing and a judge selects the bird determined to have the best voice,” Harper wrote.
Those who attend the singing contests often gamble on the birds.
“A finch who wins these competitions becomes valuable and can sell in excess of US$5,000,” Harper said in the complaint, which noted that “although certain species of finch are available in the United States, species from Guyana are believed to sing better and are therefore more highly sought after.”
Gurahoo was arraigned yesterday on a charge of unlawful wildlife smuggling and released after his uncle and cousin posted his US$25,000 bond.
A judge ordered that Gurahoo’s passport be taken away and restricted his travel to only New York City and Connecticut.
