On June 2, 2026, the Department of Justice charged two NIH researchers, Vincent Munster, 53, a Dutch national and Chief of the Virus Ecology Section at NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana, and Claude Kwe, 38, a Cameroonian research fellow, with conspiracy to smuggle monkeypox virus into the United States and making false statements to federal law enforcement.
While Munster is Dutch and Kwe Cameroonian, neither is a Chinese national. However, the case’s connection to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) biological threat framework is well documented.
Sen. Rand Paul’s April 2024 letters revealed that Munster was a named partner in the DEFUSE proposal. The EcoHealth Alliance-DARPA grant application proposed engineering chimeric bat coronaviruses and listed the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) as a partner. Paul said the disclosure “appears to contradict” Dr. Fauci’s prior testimony that the NIH was unaware of the proposal.
The WIV operates under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a State Council institution. A House Foreign Affairs Committee report found that local CCP leaders, including Director General Wang Yanyi and BSL-4 laboratory manager Yuan Zhiming, directly oversaw the WIV and its highest-containment laboratory.
The State Department further determined that the WIV has conducted classified research for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) since at least 2017. Cables obtained by U.S. Right to Know cited the existence of “PLA shadow labs at WIV.”
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence also linked the WIV to the Fifth Institute of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS), which is part of China’s acknowledged biological weapons program. The committee concluded that SARS-CoV-2 may have links to that program.
This case is the latest in a documented series of biological-smuggling incidents involving China-linked research networks operating in the United States. Most of these cases have been intercepted at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Several examples are detailed in the section below.
China’s asymmetric warfare toolkit includes numerous vectors designed to pressure the United States, including biological warfare. These components work together as part of a broader strategy.
For example, the cyber component, led by Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, has been confirmed to have penetrated U.S. power grids, water systems, and telecommunications networks.
On the economic and demographic front, Chinese chemical manufacturers supply fentanyl precursors that flow through Mexican cartels into American communities.
The State Department has assessed that China operated an offensive biological warfare program from the early 1950s until at least the late 1980s. During that period, China weaponized ricin, botulinum toxins, and the causative agents of anthrax, cholera, plague, and tularemia.
Hellbound and Down 