DETROIT (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.
Munster and Kwe were stopped at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in January after a flight from Paris and nine days in the Republic of Congo. An outbreak of the mpox disease has been linked to more than 2,000 deaths in Congo, a vast region in central Africa, though a two-year outbreak was declared over in April.
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.
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.
Munster and Kwe were stopped at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in January after a flight from Paris and nine days in the Republic of Congo. An outbreak of the mpox disease has been linked to more than 2,000 deaths in Congo, a vast region in central Africa, though a two-year outbreak was declared over in April.
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.
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