African govts. act to stop outsiders from poaching / trafficking their wildlife
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04/15/25
Ant smugglers arrested in Kenya as government warns of changing trafficking trends
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Two Belgian teenagers were charged Tuesday with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser known species.
Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal.
In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis Ng’ang’a and Vietnamese Duh Hung Nguyen also were charged with illegal trafficking in the same courtroom, following their arrest while in possession of 400 ants.
The Kenya Wildlife Service, or KWS, said in a statement that the four men were involved in trafficking the ants to markets in Europe and Asia, and that the species included messor cephalotes, a distinctive, large and red-colored harvester ant native to East Africa.
The illegal export of the ants “not only undermines Kenya’s sovereign rights over its biodiversity but also deprives local communities and research institutions of potential ecological and economic benefits,” KWS said.
The two Belgians were arrested in Kenya’s Nakuru county, which is home to various national parks. The 5,000 ants were found in a guest house where they were staying, and were packed in 2,244 test tubes that had been filled with cotton wool to enable the ants to survive for months.
The other two men were arrested in Nairobi where they were found to have 400 ants in their apartments.
Kenyan authorities valued the ants at 1 million shillings ($7,700). The prices for ants can vary greatly according to the species and the market.
Philip Muruthi, a vice president for conservation at the Africa Wildlife Foundation in Nairobi, said ants play the role of enriching soils, enabling germination and providing food for species such as birds.
“The thing is, when you see a healthy forest, like Ngong forest, you don’t think about what is making it healthy. It is the relationships all the way from the bacteria to the ants to the bigger things,” he said.
Muruthi warned of the risk of trafficking species and exporting diseases to the agricultural industry of the destination countries.
“Even if there is trade, it should be regulated and nobody should be taking our resources just like that,” he said.
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Court gives ant smugglers choice of fine or year in prison
By AFP | May. 7, 2025
A Kenyan court sentenced four people on Wednesday, including two Belgian teenagers, to one year in prison or a fine of more than $7,000 for attempting to smuggle thousands of live rare ants out of the country.
The case has caught the public imagination, with the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) accusing the four of engaging in "bio-piracy" for attempting to transport the rare ants out of the country.
David Lornoy and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 18 of Belgium, Duh Hung Nguyen of Vietnam, and Dennis Nganga of Kenya had all pleaded guilty to possession of the ants, but had denied seeking to traffic the insects.
Lornoy and Lodewijckx were arrested in possession of 5,000 queen ants packed in 2,244 tubes in Nakuru County, around 160 kilometres (100 miles) from the capital, Nairobi.
Duh and Nganga were found with ants stored in 140 syringes packed with cotton wool and two containers, according to a charge sheet seen by AFP.
The two cases were separate, but all four were tried together.
Possession of any wildlife specimen or trophy without a permit is a criminal offence in Kenya, and the suspects were facing a fine of up to $10,000 and five years or more in prison.
The court on Wednesday said the suspects could either spend a year in prison or pay a fine of one million shillings ($7,740), which is what the police estimated as the value of the seized ants.
The insects included the ecologically significant Messor cephalotes species native to the region, and investigators said the storage system would allow them to survive during transport for up to two months.
The KWS brought the case against the suspects, saying it was not only a "wildlife crime but also constitutes bio-piracy".
The suspects "intended to smuggle the ants to high-value exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, where demand for rare insect species is rising," it said in a statement