Two Belgian teenagers who were found in two $9,200 ants, who were allegedly targeted at European and Asian markets will be sentenced within two weeks, a Kenyan magistrate judge said Wednesday.
Njeri Thuku, the district judge sitting in Kenya’s main airport court, said she would not rush the case but would take the time to review the environmental impact and would pass the psychological report in court before passing the sentence on May 7.
Belgian nationals Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, 19, were arrested in a hotel on April 5 with 5,000 ants. They were charged with violating the Wildlife Protection Act on April 15.
The teenager told the sheriff that they didn’t know it was illegal to keep the ants and were just having fun.
Kenya Wildlife Service said the case represents a “turnover in trafficking trends – from iconic large mammals to lesser-known but ecologically crucial species.”
Kenya has trafficked in the past with body parts of large wild animals such as elephants, rhinos and clothing.
Belgian teenagers enter the country on tourist visas and live in a hotel in Naivasha in the west, popular among tourists for their animal parks and lakes.
Their attorney Halima Nyakinyua Magairo told the Associated Press Wednesday that her clients had no idea what they were doing was illegal. She said she hopes that the Belgian embassy in Kenya can support them more in this judicial process.
In another but related case, Kenyan Dennis ng’ang’a and Vietnamese Duh Hung Nguyen were accused of having 400 ants in their apartment in the capital Nairobi.
KWS said all four suspects were involved in trafficking ants to markets in Europe and Asia, and that the species includes Messor Cephalotes, a unique, large, large and red harvester that is from East Africa.
Ants are purchased by people who keep them as pets and observe them in the colony. Several European websites list different kinds of ants at different prices.
According to KWS, the 5,400 ants found in the four men were 1.2 million Kenyan shillings ($9,200).
