Senior NIH Scientist, Research Fellow Charged with Bringing Deactivated Monkey Pox Virus Into U.S.
June 3rd, 2026BREAKING: NIH ebola expert ARRESTED by the FBI for smuggling deadly pathogens into America from the Congo
Vincent Munster was BUSTED at an airport with 113 vials containing monkeypox, chickenpox, and human DNA.
93 of the vials haven't even been tested yet…… pic.twitter.com/VLwDAajrOy
— Nicolas Hulscher, MPH (@NicHulscher) June 3, 2026
Via: AP:
Two scientists at a U.S. government lab were charged with smuggling vials of deactivated mpox virus into the country from Africa and lying about it during interviews with investigators at a Michigan airport, authorities said Tuesday.
A criminal complaint was unsealed in federal court in Detroit against Vincent Munster, who is chief of the virus ecology section at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, and Claude Kwe, who works with him as a research fellow.
Munster and Kwe were stopped at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in January after a flight from Paris and nine days in the Republic of Congo.
Munster “adamantly denied” returning to the U.S. with biological materials or samples, the FBI said in a court filing. But tests subsequently revealed that Munster and Kwe were traveling with vials of deactivated mpox, the FBI said, yet they had failed to declare them or obtain the necessary permission.
“Any deliberate effort to conceal and smuggle biological materials into the United States without proper authorization is a breach of the public’s trust and could have placed the public at risk,” said Marcus Sykes of the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services.
