Live ants being smuggled – Image by Kenya Wildlife Service
A year for a thousand ants.
Wildlife trafficking is an international problem that national authorities try to tackle as best they can.
In Africa, this is an ongoing issue for countries with rich ecological diversity and often substandard law enforcement infrastructure.
A Kenyan court on Wednesday ordered a Chinese man to pay a fine of 1 million shillings ($7,746) and gave him a 12-month jail term for trying to smuggle live ants out of the country. https://t.co/2lMUiGYVkE
— Reuters Africa (@ReutersAfrica) April 15, 2026
Yesterday (15), a Chinese national was sentenced to a year in prison for his attempt ‘to smuggle thousands of live queen garden ants out of Kenya’.
Chinese national Zhang Kequn was arrested last month at Nairobi’s main international airport with more than 2,200 live garden ants in his luggage.
Zhang’s lawyer said he would appeal against his sentence pic.twitter.com/H1b9BMJlaz
— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 16, 2026
BBC reported:
“The court in Nairobi on Wednesday also fined Zhang Kequn 1m Kenyan shillings ($7,737). Judge Irene Gichobi described Zhang as not ‘entirely honest’ and lacking in remorse.
Last month, he was charged with illegally dealing in wildlife species after being arrested at Nairobi’s main airport while attempting to travel to China with more than 2,000 ants in his luggage.”
Prized by collectors, ants are in high demand in Europe and Asia.
“’There is need for a stiff deterrent sentence’, Judge Gichobi said, noting the ‘rising cases of dealing in large quantities of garden ants and the negative ecological side effects’.
[…] Following Zhang’s arrest at Nairobi’s international airport on 10 March, the court heard he had bought the ants from Kenyan national Charles Mwangi at 10,000 Kenyan shillings (£58; $77) for every 100 of them.”
Read more:
Curator at American Museum of Natural History Arrested in Turkey for Allegedly Smuggling Spiders and Scorpions (VIDEO)
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