A man was arrested with more than 2,200 live garden ants in his luggage at the main airport in Nairobi, Kenya, this week, amid a rise in cases of smuggling of the insects into the country.
Chinese citizen Zhang Kequn, 27, was arrested at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Tuesday (10), while trying to leave the country, according to court documents seen by Reuters this Thursday (12).
Immigration authorities issued a “blocking order” on Zhang’s passport after he evaded arrest in Kenya last year.
Ant breeders pay large sums to maintain colonies in large transparent containers known as anthills, which offer a literal window into the species’ complex social structures and behaviors.
Last year, four men were fined $7,700 each for trying to traffic thousands of valuable ants into Kenya’s ecosystem, in a case that experts say signals a shift in biopiracy from trophies like elephant ivory to lesser-known species.
Investigators said a search of Zhang’s luggage recovered 2,238 ants, including 1,948 packed in test tubes and the remainder in three rolls of toilet paper.
They said Zhang had been in Kenya for two weeks and mentioned three accomplices who supplied him with the ants.
The Kenya Wildlife Service told the court it needed more time to complete investigations, including analyzing an iPhone and MacBook seized from Zhang.
The wildlife service said a similar shipment of ants, originating in Kenya, had been seized in Bangkok on Tuesday, indicating the existence of an extensive and organized ant smuggling network.
