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 guesthouse, 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 didn't know it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis Ng'ang'a and Vietnamese national 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 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, 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," the KWS said. Kenya has in the past fought against the trafficking of body parts of larger species of wild animals such as elephants, rhinos, and pangolins. But the cases against the four men represent "a shift in trafficking trends—from iconic large mammals to lesser-known yet ecologically critical species," the KWS said.
The two Belgians were arrested in Kenya's Nakuru County, home to various national parks. The 5,000 ants were found in a guesthouse where they were staying, packed in 2,244 test tubes 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 about $7,700. The prices for ants can vary greatly, according to the species and the market. Philip Muruthi, a VP at the African Wildlife Foundation in Nairobi, warned of the risk of trafficking species and exporting diseases to the agricultural industry of the destination countries. "[Trade] should be regulated and nobody should be taking our resources just like that," he said.
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