• cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    A Harvard University researcher detained by Ice for months after being accused of smuggling frog embryos into the US was indicted on Wednesday on additional criminal charges.

    Kseniia Petrova, a Russian-born scientist conducting cancer research for Harvard Medical School, was indicted on Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Boston on one count of concealment of a material fact, one count of false statement and one count of smuggling goods into the United States. She had originally been charged with smuggling in May.

    Petrova was stopped at Boston’s Logan airport by US authorities on her way back from France in February, over what appeared to be an irregularity in customs paperwork related to a packet from a specialist lab of superfine spliced sections of frog embryos, for research.

    She was arrested and ended up in detention in Louisiana. Petrova was told her visa was being revoked and she was being deported to her native Russia, despite saying she feared persecution for opposing the invasion of Ukraine