TONY KARUMBA AFP
A Kenyan court on Wednesday fined four people, including two Belgian teenagers, more than $7,000 for attempting to smuggle thousands of live ants out of the country.
The case has received considerable attention after the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) accused the four of engaging in "bio-piracy".
David Lornoy and Seppe Lodewijckx, 18 of Belgium, Duh Hung Nguyen of Vietnam, and Dennis Nganga of Kenya all pleaded guilty to possessing the ants but denied seeking to traffic them.
Lornoy and Lodewijckx were arrested for possessing 5,000 queen ants packed in 2,244 tubes in Nakuru County, around 160 kilometres from Nairobi.
According to a charge sheet seen by AFP, Duh and Nganga were found with ants in 140 syringes packed with cotton wool and two containers.
The senior magistrate, Njeri Thuku, referred to the slave trade while passing judgment.
"Imagine being violently removed from your home and packed into a container with many others like you. Then imagine being isolated and squeezed into a tiny space where glucose water is the only source of nourishment for the foreseeable future," she wrote.
"It almost sounds as if the reference above is to the slave trade. Yet, it is not slave trade, but it is illegal wildlife trade."
According to the sentencing report, Lornoy was described as an "ant enthusiast" who kept colonies at home in Belgium and was a member of a Facebook group called "Ants and Ant Keeping."
He told investigators he was not aware that transporting the ants was illegal.
Police valued the ants taken by the Belgians at one million shillings ($7,740).
According to the court report, the haul included the rare Messor cephalotes species, a single queen ant that currently sells for at least $99 each.
In Kenya, possessing any wildlife specimen or trophy without a permit is a criminal offence, and suspects are normally subject to a fine of up to $10,000 and five years or more in prison.
The court ultimately sentenced all four to a fine of one million shillings ($7,740), or a year in prison if they failed to pay.
The court said Lornoy and Lodewijckx "do not come across as typical poachers" and were ignorant of the law.
But it said the case reflected a script "that has been played out before in centuries gone by... of Africa having resources plundered by the West and now the East".
The KWS said their action 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, " said a statement.
© Agence France-Presse
