Kenyan Court awarded smugglers to ants up to $ 7,700 a fine or a one -year prison

The Kenyan court sentenced four men to one year in prison or paid a $ 7,700 fine (£ 5,800) for an attempt to smuggle thousands of live ants outside the country.

The four suspects – two Belgians, Vietnamese and Kenyan – were arrested last month with 5,000 ants at a guest house in the western town of Nayasha.

They pleaded guilty to the accusations and told the court that they were collecting the highly sought after ants as a hobby and did not think it was illegal.

But by bringing the sentence on Wednesday, the court stated that the specific type of ants collected is valuable and they have thousands of them – not just a few.

Ants are thought to have been intended for exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia.

Smuggling included giant African combine ants that are appreciated by some UK dealers to £ 170 ($ 220) each.

Belgian citizens Lornoi David and Sepe Lodidevk, both 19 years old, Vietnamese National Decha Hung Nguyen and Kenya Dennis Ng’Ang, received similar conditions after the magistrate examined their softening arguments.

The Belgians were discovered with 5,000 ants, while Nguyen and Ng’Ang’a had 300.

The Wildlife Service in Kenya (KWS), which is used greater to protect the bigger beings, such as lions and elephants, described this as a “remarkable case”.

The case showed a “disturbing shift of traffic models – from emblematic mammals to less well -known species that are vital to the environmental balance,” KWS said last month when the four were arrested.

Belgian teenagers had entered Kenya on a tourist visa and stayed in Nayasha, a city popular with tourists for their animal parks and lakes.

KWS said the search for rare insect species is growing.

In Kenya, ants are protected from international biodiversity treaties and their trade is highly regulated.