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Four men in Kenya face a year in prison or $7,700 fine for trying to smuggle thousands of live giant African harvester queen ants (Messor cephalotes) out of the country.
The court sentence May 7, 2025 were for two Belgian teenagers, a Vietnamese man and a Kenyan national who were arrested in April 2025 on charges of attempting to smuggle around 5,440 queen ants in modified test tubes and syringes. The ants were being shipped to collectors in Europe and Asia.
The Belgians were found with 5,000 ants, while the other two were found with more than 300 ants. The ants were packed in test tubes filled with cotton wool to help them survive for months, authorities said.
The ants were estimated to be worth nearly a million dollars. Enthusiasts looking to set up a colony in a tank or large transparent containers called 'formicariums' to study their behavior might find these exotic pets in stores for nearly $200.
The illegal trade could threaten the ecosystem of the species in Kenya as queen ants are key to maintaining their population. They are the sole ants capable of producing eggs that develop into worker, soldier and future queen ants.
Pleading guilty, Belgian national Lornoy David, 19, who is passionate about ants and has 10 colonies at home, stated he was unaware that smuggling ants was against the law. Seppe Lodewijckx, 19, also from Belgium, said his sole intention was to purchase ants for his interest in entomology.
But delivering the sentence Njeri Thuku, senior principal magistrate, pointed out that the particular species of ants collected was valuable and they had thousands of them, not just a few. They were carefully packed in test tubes and appeared to be ready for sale as exotic pets in Europe and Asia where they could be worth nearly a million dollars, Thuku added.
The court referred to Vietnamese national Duh Hung Nguyen as a 'mule or courier' and Kenyan Dennis Ng'ang'a as a 'broker' because of his familiarity with the ants in his rural area.
"Already the world has lost a number of species due in part to greed. It is time to stem this tide," said Magistrate Thuku. "This court will do what it can to protect all creatures great and small."
Life in jail is the maximum penalty for wildlife trafficking in Kenya. But she gave them less than the minimum sentence. She ruled their crime was serious but didn't compare to poaching elephants. The traffickers have 14 days to appeal against the ruling.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) praised the verdict, calling it a proof of Kenya's strict policy against wildlife trafficking. The case underscored the ecological significance of the giant African harvester ants, emphasising that their absence from the ecosystem could affect soil health and biodiversity.
Wildlife specialists indicated that the Kenyan case represents a move in biopiracy from larger, iconic animals such as elephants to lesser-known species.
