Kenyan authorities have arrested a Chinese national at Nairobi’s main airport after discovering more than 2,200 live garden ants hidden in his luggage.
The case is linked to the increasing trend of insect smuggling from Kenya.
Zhang Kequn was intercepted on Tuesday 10 March at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport while trying to board a flight out of the country.
Immigration officials had marked a “stop order” on his passport after he evaded arrest in Kenya last year.
According to court records, about 2,238 ants, of which 1,948 were packed in specialized test tubes and another 300 hidden in three rolls of soft tissue paper, were found in the 27-year-old’s luggage.
Authorities believed Zhang had been in Kenya for the past two weeks. After initial investigations, he revealed the names of three accomplices who supplied him with insects.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is now investigating his iPhone and MacBook to get to the bottom of the incident.
The case appears to be about well-organized human trafficking. Authorities said a similar shipment of ants from Kenya was seized in Bangkok on Tuesday, the same day as Zhang’s arrest.
Smuggling ants has become a lucrative but illegal business, with enthusiasts in Europe and Asia paying large sums to keep them in transparent containers called formicariums, which provide a glimpse into the social structure of these insects.
In 2025. Four men were fined $7,700 each for trying to traffic thousands of ecologically valuable ants from Kenya.
