Flemish teenagers back home after month in Kenyan cell for ant smuggling: “Now to our family to relax”

David and Seppe from Mol have been in a Kenyan cell on suspicion of ant -smuggling since Saturday 5 April. That morning the police invaded their hostel on the Naivashameer. In their room the agents found no fewer than 2,440 test tubes, filled with ants. According to the Kenyan government, it was about 5,000 ant quins from the African harvest ant, a species that is loved among ant lovers because of their impressive corridors and group behavior.

The Kempenaren stated that they never intended to perform the ants illegally. During their journey through Kenya they would have been offered ants to buy, including the necessary papers for export. « We have been naive, » David said later in court. The moment those papers were delivered, the police invaded.

The Kenyan judge eventually gave the two young men a fine of about 6,800 euros. « There is no justification to have five thousand ant queens in your possession, » said the judge on Wednesday. « But the defendants deserve a second chance. » That fine was paid the same day, on which the two Flemish people were allowed to leave their cells and return home.

It is the first time that ant smuggling was treated in a Kenyan court. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), who acted as a bourgeois party, called it « a milestone in the fight against biopiration and illegal trade in living ants » and see this statement as a « important victory ».