Two researchers have been apprehended and charged with conspiracy to smuggle after being caught 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 in Michigan, the US, in January this year following an alleged smuggling incident. US authorities reported that the pair, hailing from the Netherlands and Cameroon, were intercepted by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) after being observed transporting a large black plastic case.
Upon questioning about the case, prosecutors stated that they claimed to be carrying diagnostics 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 that Munster and Kwe are facing charges of conspiring to smuggle vials containing the mpox virus into the US and providing false statements to federal law enforcement. The researchers, 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.
According to the attorney’s office, they returned from a city experiencing an Mpox outbreak, which led to hundreds of deaths globally in 2025. Munster, a former virus ecology section chief, and Kwe, a research fellow, were studying emerging viral pathogens and the transmission across species barriers at a laboratory with high biosafety precautions for researching human pathogens. CBP officials, with FBI agents, inspected their case and discovered 113 vials in Styrofoam coolers.
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 crowded commercial plane from the Congo. Jennifer Runyan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, condemned the alleged dangerous and unlawful smuggling, stating that the researchers had tried to deceive federal agents. She emphasized that no researcher should believe they are above the law.
The Daily Mirror has reached out to the National Institutes of Health for a comment.