A Kenyan court this Wednesday ordered a \u200cChinese 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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The magistrate in the case said a stiff sentence was needed as a deterrent given a spate of cases in Kenya \u2060of ant-trafficking.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It serves markets, such as China, where enthusiasts have paid large sums to maintain ant colonies in large transparent vessels known as formicariums that allow them to study the species’ complex social structures and behaviours.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Zhang’s lawyer said he would appeal against his sentence.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He initially pleaded not guilty to charges including dealing in live \u200cwildlife \u2060species but later changed his plea to guilty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Noting the increasing and rising cases of dealing in large quantities of garden ants and the negative ecological side effects of massive harvesting, there is a need for a stiff deterrent,” Magistrate Irene Gichobi \u2060said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Kenyan man, Charles Mwangi, was also charged in the case, accused of supplying the ants to Zhang.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mwangi has pleaded not guilty and is out on bail. His case \u2060was not before the court this Wednesday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Last year four men were fined $7 746 each for trying to traffic thousands of ants. Wildlife experts said \u2060at the time that the case signalled a shift in biopiracy from trophies like elephant ivory to lesser-known species.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31988,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-31987","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Kenyan court ordered a \u200cChinese man to pay a fine of $7 746 and gave him a 12-month jail term for trying to smuggle live ants","published_date":"2026-04-15 15:39:03","news_description":"Kenyan court ordered a \u200cChinese man to pay a fine of $7 746 and gave him a 12-month jail term for trying to smuggle live ants","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31989,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31987\/revisions\/31989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}