Man Busted Trying to Smuggle 2K Queen Ants

Kenyan authorities say they've busted an alleged repeat player in a booming niche wildlife trade: live queen ants. Officials at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport arrested 27-year-old Chinese national Zhang Kequn after screening reportedly turned up more than 2,000 live queen garden ants in his luggage bound for China, some in test tubes and some hidden in toilet-paper rolls, a prosecutor told a court Wednesday. "Within his personal luggage there was found 1,948 garden ants packed in specialized test tubes," prosecutor Allen Mulama said, per the BBC. "A further 300 live ants were recovered concealed in three rolls of tissue paper within the luggage." The species, Messor cephalotes, is protected under international biodiversity rules and has become popular among collectors in Europe and Asia.

Reuters adds that Zhang allegedly slipped out of Kenya last year, but officials flagged his passport with a "stop order." Investigators say Zhang is tied to a trafficking network dismantled last year, calling him its alleged mastermind. Prosecutors have been granted five days to hold Zhang as they forensically examine his phone and laptop and expand investigations into other suspected ant-harvesting hubs in Kenya. The case follows a 2023 prosecution in which four men from Belgium, Vietnam, and Kenya were convicted over a similar scheme involving thousands of queen ants destined for exotic pet markets—what Kenya's wildlife agency called a landmark ruling in its effort to protect even its smallest species.