Russian researcher at Harvard University charged for smuggling frog embryos

By Malathi Nayak  A Russian researcher at Harvard Medical School who has been detained by US immigration authorities since February was charged with illegally smuggling frog embryos in her luggage on a plane flight.

 

The arrest of Kseniia Petrova Wednesday on a federal criminal charge that carries up to 20 years in prison comes amid the Trump administration’s broader immigration crackdown targeting international students and its intensifying standoff with Harvard, the oldest and richest US university.

 

Petrova, 31, has been held in custody since mid-February, when customs agents detained her at Boston’s Logan Airport on her return from France because she failed to declare biological material she brought into the US as part of her research. 

 

 

A former employee of the Institute of Genetic Biology in Moscow, Petrova has sued the Department of Homeland Security for revoking her visa. Her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, said the new criminal charge is “clearly intended to make Kseniia look like a criminal to justify their efforts to deport her.”

 

The US government is aware that she has been persecuted in Russia “for protesting against the Putin regime,” Romanovsky said. In 2022, she was arrested in Russia for protesting the war in Ukraine, according to the Harvard Crimson.

 

Petrova allegedly said she was unaware of the requirement to declare biological material upon her arrival in the US, according to a statement from the US attorney’s office in Boston.

 

Authorities later recovered her text message exchanges with colleagues, including one in which she was questioned on how she would get through customs checks with samples, according to the statement. She allegedly replied:  “No plan yet. I won’t be able to swallow them.”

 

US District Judge Christina Reiss set a bail hearing for May 28 to determine whether Petrova should be released, Romanovsky said. 

 

Representatives of the Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.