Two researchers have been arrested and charged with conspiracy to smuggle after they were reportedly apprehended at a major airport with vials containing the mpox virus and human DNA.
Vincent Munster, aged 53, and Claude Kwe, aged 38, were detained at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the primary airport for Detroit, Michigan, in the US, earlier this year following an alleged smuggling incident. US authorities stated that the duo, hailing from the Netherlands and Cameroon, were intercepted by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) after being observed transporting “a large black plastic case.”
According to prosecutors, when questioned about the case, they claimed they were carrying diagnostic and testing equipment but are now accused of “smuggling viral pathogens on a packed commercial airplane from an outbreak in the Republic of Congo.”
The US Attorney’s Office of Michigan announced on Tuesday that Munster, originally from the Netherlands, and Kwe, from Cambodia, are facing charges of smuggling vials containing the mpox virus into the US and providing false statements to federal law enforcement. The officials alleged that the scientists, employed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at the organization’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana, had traveled to Detroit from Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.
The attorney’s office disclosed that they returned from the city during an Mpox outbreak, a virus causing a rash and flu-like symptoms, which led to numerous deaths worldwide in 2025. Munster, the former virus ecology section chief at the laboratory’s Laboratory of Virology, and Kwe, a research fellow, were both studying “emerging viral pathogens.”
Their research focused on the transmission of pathogens across species barriers while operating in a laboratory that enforces the highest biosafety precautions for studying known and potential human pathogens. CBP officials, in collaboration with FBI agents, inspected Munster and Kwe’s case and discovered 113 vials in Styrofoam coolers.
The Attorney General’s office revealed that subsequent testing revealed 17 vials containing deactivated mpox virus, one with chickenpox virus, and two with human DNA. Detroit attorney general Jerome Gorgon Jr accused the experts of smuggling the pathogens “on a packed commercial airplane” from the Congo.
Jennifer Runyan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, characterized the allegations as involving “dangerous and unlawful smuggling,” asserting that the researchers attempted to deceive federal agents. She emphasized that no researcher should think their position or qualifications exempt them from the law.
The Daily Mirror has reached out to the National Institutes of Health for a statement.