KATHMANDU, Nepal — A Nepali court convicted five men on Monday of smuggling baby chimpanzees in a high-profile case that bared the country’s emergence as a hot-spot for the trafficking of rare and endangered animals through South Asia.

A Pakistani and three Indians were sentenced to five years in prison, said Anand Shrestha, an official at the Kathmandu District Court. A fifth man, a Nepali citizen, was given two and a half years for trafficking the two chimpanzees, which were taken from Nigeria and smuggled through Turkey before arriving in Nepal in 2017.

In recent years, Nepal has arrested hundreds of smugglers who have taken advantage of its porous borders with India and China — as well as corruption in law enforcement and relaxed customs rules — to illegally transport rhinoceros horns, wool from Tibetan antelopes, rare owls and endangered apes.

Smuggling of apes has become a lucrative, multimillion-dollar business. Wildlife activists say thousands of gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans are sold on the black market every year to zoos, exotic-pet owners and even brothels.