The Department of Justice just charged two foreign nationals working at the National Institutes of Health with smuggling monkeypox into the United States and lying to federal agents about it. Vincent Munster, a 53-year-old Dutch citizen, and Claude Kwe, a 38-year-old Cameroonian citizen, were caught at the Detroit airport hauling a large black plastic case stuffed with 113 vials of monkeypox virus in Styrofoam coolers.

But don't worry, folks. They told Customs and Border Protection it was just "diagnostics and testing equipment." Nothing to see here. Just a couple of guys rolling through customs with enough monkeypox to start a horror movie.

Both Munster and Kwe worked at the NIH's Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana, in the Virus Ecology Section, where they studied "emerging viral pathogens" and cross-species transmission. They'd taken a trip to the Republic of Congo — during an active monkeypox outbreak, naturally — and decided to bring home some souvenirs. When CBP officers actually checked the case, they found the 113 vials. Testing confirmed that 17 of the 20 vials sampled contained monkeypox virus.

Let that sink in. Foreign scientists, employed by YOUR government, funded by YOUR tax dollars, caught red-handed smuggling a dangerous virus across our border. And their first instinct was to lie about it.

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The charges, as reported by Just The News journalist Misty Severi, include conspiracy to smuggle monkeypox into the U.S. and giving false statements to federal law enforcement. The case is being handled by U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon's office in Eastern Michigan, with the FBI assisting the investigation. If convicted, they face up to five years in prison.

Five years. You can get more than that for tax fraud. These two tried to sneak a deadly virus past customs in a plastic case and the maximum is five years. That's the system working for you, America.

Here's the question nobody in Washington wants to answer: how many other suitcases made it through? These two got caught because a CBP officer actually looked inside the case. How many times has someone waltzed through with "diagnostics and testing equipment" and nobody blinked? We're supposed to trust that this is the only time it happened?

We spend billions funding the NIH. We invite foreign researchers into our most sensitive labs, give them access to the most dangerous pathogens on the planet, and apparently nobody thought to check whether they were smuggling viruses home in their carry-on luggage. The Republic of Congo had an active outbreak and these guys just helped themselves.

This is what happens when our government agencies operate on the honor system with zero accountability. The same NIH that told us to trust the science can't even keep track of who's walking out the door with monkeypox vials.

Five years maximum. One hundred and thirteen vials. Two foreign nationals we were paying. And a border security apparatus that only works when somebody happens to look inside the bag.

Sleep well tonight, folks.