Harvard Russian scientist being held by ICE, charged with smuggling frog embryos into US

A Russian scientist working at Harvard Medical School who was nabbed by ICE three months ago has now been charged with trying to smuggle frog embryos into the US, federal prosecutors said.

Kseniia Petrova, a research associate at the Ivy League school, has been holed up at an ICE facility ever since she nabbed after flying into Boston’s international airport with the stash of embryos back in February.

The 31-year-old Russian, who had just come back from a vacation in Paris, initially denied having to declare anything when probed by Customs and Border Protection, the feds allege.

A search of her duffle bag allegedly uncovered a foam box containing clawed frog embryos in microcentrifuges, as well as embryonic samples in paraffin well stages and on mounted dyed slides, prosecutors said.

Petrova later allegedly admitted to carrying biological material but claimed she didn’t no she was required to declare it.

Text messages recovered from her phone showed that a colleague had told her she’d needed to declare the goods, according to prosecutors.

“If you bring samples or antibody back, make sure you get the permission etc. Like that link I sent to leon-/group chat about frog embryos because TSA went through my bags at customs in Boston,” one text read, according to a criminal complaint.

“What is your plan to pass the American Customs with samples? This is the most delicate place of the trajectory,” another text read.

Petrova allegedly responded: “No plan yet. I won’t be able to swallow them.”

Her research visa was immediately revoked after she was detained.

She has been held at an immigration detention facility in Louisiana ever since.

In additional to deportation, Petrova now faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of smuggling goods into the US.

Her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, ripped the case as “meritless.”

“The charge, filed three months after the alleged customs violation, is clearly intended to make Kseniia look like a criminal to justify their efforts to deport her,” he said in a statement.