Two researchers with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been charged with conspiracy to smuggle monkeypox into the United States and giving false statements to federal law enforcement.
Vincent Munster and Claude Kwe, both researchers at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Mont., are accused of lying to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents about the contents of their research, according to an announcement made Wednesday by the Department of Justice. They each face a maximum five-year prison sentence.
“No researchers should believe their positions, credentials, or professional status place them above the law,” Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, said in a statement. “The allegations in this case are serious. They involve the dangerous and unlawful smuggling of deactivated [Monkeypox] virus into the United States and alleged efforts to mislead our federal agents.”
Munster, 53, is a citizen of the Netherlands and chief of the virus ecology section at the Laboratory of Virology. Kwe, 38, a citizen of Cameroon, 38, is a research fellow in Munster’s section. Authorities said the pair is focused on “emerging viral pathogens” and how those pathogens “cross the species barrier,” working at a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory that employs the highest level of biosafety precautions for scientific research of known and potential human pathogens.
On Jan. 25, 2026, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, Munster and Kwe allegedly arrived at the McNamara Terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport with travel originating from Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, where an outbreak of monkeypox—an infectious virus that can result in painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes, fevers and other ailments—was occurring.
They were purportedly observed by CBP officials who observed both men traveling with a large black plastic case. They both allegedly told officials that said case contained diagnostics and testing equipment.
Subsequent investigation by CBP and FBI agents purportedly revealed that the case contained 113 vials in Styrofoam coolers. As of June 3, the FBI tested 20 of the 113 vials and 17 of them contained deactivated monkeypox virus, one contained the Chickenpox virus, and two contained only human DNA.
“These NIH experts apparently broke our laws by smuggling viral pathogens on a packed commercial airplane from an outbreak in the Republic of Congo. Let that sink in,” United States Attorney Gorgon said in a statement.
A 2022 U.S. outbreak of a monkeypox strain was connected to 42 deaths and roughly 30,000 infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Whistleblower Letter Preceded Charges
In early May, the government watchdog group White Coat Waste (WCW) published a blog post including a whistleblower letter alleging that the NIH lab in question in Montana was in “full cover-up mode” over a dangerous monkey bite accident. It cited what eventually led to the new charges against Munster and Kwe.
The whistleblower letter, written anonymously and obtained by WCW, suggested that Munster has a history of conducting animal experiments with dangerous foreign viruses. It mentioned his alleged attempt to smuggle “dozens of vials in his baggage” on a trip back from Africa in January, which the DOJ stated in their charges.
The whistleblower said that Munster “got caught trying to sneak VHF [viral hemorrhagic fever] samples into the United States from Africa” and that NIH officials “did not inform the RML campus.”
The source also claimed that Munster and two colleagues traveling with him were quietly banned from the RML campus.
“Our investigations and lawsuits exposed Munster’s maximum-pain animal tests with Ebola, his bat experiments with Chinese coronaviruses prior to the pandemic, and his close collaboration with a new [Anthony] Fauci-funded bat virus lab in Colorado,” Justin Goodman, senior vice president at WCW, said in a statement shared with Military.com. “He also has deep ties to EcoHealth Alliance and was involved in its early proposals to engineer COVID-like viruses in Wuhan.”
He called to defund and decommission “the dangerous Rocky Mountain Lab and its maximum pain animal experiments before they cause a catastrophe.”
“Stop the money, stop the madness,” he added.
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