Feelers out Smuggling bust exposes a booming trade in ants

Poaching busts are familiar territory for the officers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force tasked with protecting the country's iconic creatures.

- By Peter Muiruri NAIROBI with Guardian staff and agencies

But what awaited guards when they descended in early April on a guesthouse in the west of the country was both larger and smaller in scale than the smuggling operations they typically encounter. There were more than 5,000 smuggled animals, caged in their own enclosures. Each one, however, was about the size of a little fingernail: 18-25mm.

The cargo, which two Belgian teenagers had apparently intended to ship to exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, was ants. Their enclosures were a mixture of test tubes and syringes containing cotton wool environments that authorities say would keep the insects alive for weeks.

"We did not come here to break any laws. By accident and stupidity we did," said Lornoy David, one of the Belgian smugglers.

David and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 19 years old, pleaded guilty after being charged last month with wildlife piracy, alongside two other men in a separate case who were caught smuggling 400 ants. They are due to be sentenced on 7 May. The cases have shed new light on the global ant trade - and what authorities say is a growing trend of trafficking "less conspicuous" creatures.