Oecophylla longinoda is an ant tree species discovered within the tropical forests of Africa | Picture: Achoelator / Shutterstock
Two younger males had been arrested in Kenya with roughly 5,000 queen ants, valued at greater than €8,000, and are being charged with trafficking the extremely valued bugs. Information experiences declare these ants can be value practically €1 million in Europe.
Belgian residents David Lornoy and Seppe Lodewijckx, each 19 years outdated, had been discovered on April fifth in a visitor house within the western Kenyan city of Naivasha with the bugs. They had been charged 10 days later with violating wildlife conservation legal guidelines.
They confessed to unlawful possession of ants, however declare they didn’t know that it was illegal. Nevertheless, native authorities say they’re positive the bugs had been supposed for European and Asian markets. A Kenyan Justice of the Peace’s court docket stated it expects the 2 Belgian youngsters to be sentenced in two weeks, doubtlessly on Could seventh, as soon as they’ve had time to overview the environmental impression and psychological experiences filed with the court docket.
The teenagers instructed Decide Njeri Thuku, sitting on the court docket in Kenya’s essential airport, that they’d no concept holding the ants was unlawful and had been simply having enjoyable.
‘We’re not criminals’
“We’re not criminals, we’re 18 years outdated, we’re naive, and I simply need to go house to begin my life,” Lornoy stated throughout a primary trial session final week..
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) had stated the case represented “a shift in trafficking tendencies — from iconic giant mammals to lesser-known but ecologically essential species.” The nation has prior to now handled the trafficking of physique elements of bigger wild animals, together with elephants, rhinos, and pangolins.
However it’s just like smuggling cocaine
“It’s like cocaine,” Dino Martins, director of the Turkana Basin Institute and considered one of Kenya’s main insect specialists, instructed Reuters. “The value of cocaine in Colombia versus getting a kilogram within the European market is such a giant worth addition, that’s why folks do it.”
The 2 Belgian teenagers entered the nation on a vacationer visa to get pleasure from Naivasha, a city in style amongst vacationers for its animal parks and lakes.
David and Seppe’s lawyer, Halima Nyakinyua Magairo, is arguing that her shoppers didn’t know what they had been doing was unlawful. She additionally stated she anticipated the Belgian embassy in Kenya to “assist them extra on this judicial course of.”
Others caught smuggling 400 extra ants
In a separate case, Kenyan Dennis Ng’ang’a and Vietnamese Duh Hung Nguyen had been charged after they had been present in possession of 400 ants of their condominium within the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. Additionally they confessed to possessing the ants illegally.
KWS acknowledged that these two suspects are additionally concerned in trafficking the ants to markets in Europe and Asia, the place folks buy them as pets and to look at their colonies.
The 4 ant trafficking suspects had ant species, such because the messor cephalotes, a particular, giant, and red-coloured harvester ant native to East Africa.
Kenyan prosecutors valued each seizures at about 1.2 million Kenyan shillings ($9,300). Nevertheless, Reuters estimated that, relying on the quantity and number of every species discovered, the haul would have been value about a million euros if it had reached European shores.