India, June 3 -- Two scientists have been charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to smuggle monkeypox into the United States and making false statements to federal law enforcement, United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. announced.

The accused have been identified as Vincent Munster and Claude Kwe, both associated with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Munster, a 53-year-old citizen of the Netherlands, serves as Chief of the Virus Ecology Section in the Laboratory of Virology at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana. Kwe, a 38-year-old citizen of Cameroon, is a research fellow in the same section. Their work focuse...