Kenya: Ant smuggling suspects set to be sentenced on May 7

A magistrate presiding over the case of four suspects charged with smugglings garden ants, has set their sentencing date to May 7, 2025 during a hearing in Nairobi on Wednesday.

Magistrate Njeri Thuku made the ruling after receiving the victim impact report from the Kenya Wildlife Services officials.

"In this instance the prosecution has gone one step forward and prepared a victim impact statement, which I will read the title as it is 'Illegal ant trafficking from Kenya to Asia, Europe and America'. So it explains in this instance why the live ants were being trafficked and therefore, I am not sentencing today. The sentence will take place on the 7th of May at 09:30 A.M," she said.

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 were also charged with illegal trafficking in the same courtroom, following their arrest while in possession of 400 ants.

The Kenya Wildlife Service said 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 in a statement.

Kenya has in the past fought against the trafficking of body parts of larger species of wild animals such as elephants, rhinos and pangolins among others. But the cases against the four men represent "a shift in trafficking trends — from iconic large mammals to lesser-known yet ecologically critical species,” 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.