{"id":15384,"date":"2025-04-16T11:39:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T11:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/16\/belgian-teens-arrested-with-5000-smuggled-ants-as-kenya-warns-of-changing-trafficking-trends\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T11:39:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T11:39:54","slug":"belgian-teens-arrested-with-5000-smuggled-ants-as-kenya-warns-of-changing-trafficking-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/16\/belgian-teens-arrested-with-5000-smuggled-ants-as-kenya-warns-of-changing-trafficking-trends\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgian teens arrested with 5,000 smuggled ants as Kenya warns of changing trafficking trends"},"content":{"rendered":"

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis Ng\u2019ang\u2019a and Vietnamese Duh Hung Nguyen also were charged with illegal trafficking in the same courtroom, following their arrest while in possession of 400 ants. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

The illegal export of the ants \u201cnot only undermines Kenya\u2019s sovereign rights over its biodiversity but also deprives local communities and research institutions of potential ecological and economic benefits,\u201d KWS said in a statement. <\/p>\n

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Belgian nationals Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx told the magistrate they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal.<\/span> <\/div>
Monicah Mwangi\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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 \u201ca shift in trafficking trends \u2014 from iconic large mammals to lesser-known yet ecologically critical species,\u201d KWS said. <\/p>\n

The two Belgians were arrested in Kenya\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

The other two men were arrested in Nairobi where they were found to have 400 ants in their apartments. <\/p>\n

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In a separate case, Duh Hung Nyugen of Vietnam and Dennis Ng’ang’a of Kenya were charged with illegal trafficking, following their arrest while in possession of 400 ants.<\/span> <\/div>
Monicah Mwangi\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Philip Muruthi, a vice president for conservation at the Africa Wildlife Foundation in Nairobi, said ants play the role of enriching soils, enabling germination and providing food for species such as birds. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, when you see a healthy forest, like Ngong forest, you don\u2019t think about what is making it healthy. It is the relationships all the way from the bacteria to the ants to the bigger things,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Muruthi warned of the risk of trafficking species and exporting diseases to the agricultural industry of the destination countries. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven if there is trade, it should be regulated and nobody should be taking our resources just like that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}