Anthony Fauci is gone but his scientists are still running his labs.
They didn’t get more careful when he left – they got bolder.
Now one of them got busted smuggling Ebola at the airport – and what happened next is the part NIH hoped you would never find out.
How Vincent Munster Built His Career Inside Fauci's NIH
Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana is a BSL-4 facility – the same containment level as labs handling Ebola and smallpox.
It is operated by NIAID, the agency Anthony Fauci ran for decades.
Vincent Munster joined NIAID's Laboratory of Virology in 2009 and spent fifteen years building his career inside Fauci's empire.
In 2016, he co-authored the proposal for what critics called "Wuhan West" – a bat virus laboratory at Colorado State University built in partnership with Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance, the same organization that funneled American taxpayer money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In 2020, Munster personally requested NIAID funding for that project while Fauci was running the agency.
He was also a named participant in DEFUSE – the DARPA proposal to engineer novel bat viruses by inserting furin cleavage sites into coronavirus backbones, which allow viruses to infect human lung cells.
DARPA rejected DEFUSE as too dangerous.
The following year, a novel bat coronavirus with a furin cleavage site began infecting humans in Wuhan.
Senator Rand Paul flagged Munster by name two years ago as part of his investigation into COVID-19's origins, and Munster dodged direct questions from three U.S. senators.
Nobody at NIH stopped him from walking into a BSL-4 building every morning.
The Virus Smuggling Incident That Triggered an FBI Investigation
In January 2026, Munster and colleague Claude Kwe Yinda flew back from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Customs agents at Detroit Metropolitan Airport found a protective case in their luggage containing pathogen samples collected from patients – including monkeypox virus, classified by HHS as a select agent posing a severe threat to public safety.
They had no legal paperwork to transport those samples across an international border.
When agents asked what was in the vials, Munster told them it was science equipment and reagents.
He later told Rocky Mountain Lab biosafety staff the same vials were DNA samples.
HHS referred Munster to the FBI for criminal prosecution, and RFK Jr. confirmed the referral to Laura Loomer – adding that Munster will likely go to prison.
The NIH Cover-Up That Followed the Arrest
On January 26 – the morning after federal agents detained Munster – Rocky Mountain Lab allowed him and his associates into the BSL-4 facility completely unsupervised.
A whistleblower told White Coat Waste that NIH officials never informed the lab's biosafety staff about the detention.
Not for two days.
Restrictions were only imposed on January 27 – two full days after customs flagged the vials.
Even then, a personal representative was allowed inside to retrieve belongings, and one of Munster's associates has since had full access restored.
Senator Tim Sheehy's letter to the HHS Inspector General calls it what it is: a breakdown of personnel management and oversight at a facility handling the world's most dangerous pathogens.
Three Incidents NIH Did Not Announce
The airport detention was not the first alarm NIH buried.
In November 2025, a monkey infected with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever bit through a worker's protective equipment at Rocky Mountain Lab.
CCHF kills up to 40 percent of the people who contract it.
The worker was evacuated to a specialized quarantine facility, and NIH recorded the incident in a single line of biosafety committee meeting minutes.
No public announcement.
Three months later, a second worker was exposed to CCHF through a hole in a protective glove while changing cages of infected mice.
Again – no public announcement.
Senators Joni Ernst and Rick Scott have since joined Sheehy in demanding answers.
"We can never allow another Wuhan to occur, especially within our own borders," Ernst said.
The Cover-Up Runs Deeper Than One Scientist
Munster is the product of a system – one that Fauci built, EcoHealth funded, and NIH protected for two decades while Congress asked questions nobody answered.
The same network that dismissed COVID lab leak concerns and routed American taxpayer money to Chinese virology labs ran this BSL-4 facility in rural Montana.
When their scientist got caught at the airport with undeclared pathogen samples, they let him walk back into the building.
There is no mandatory federal registry for biosafety incidents at most high-containment labs in the United States.
A 2024 analysis in The Lancet documented 309 lab-acquired infections involving dangerous pathogens – a number experts say dramatically understates reality because most incidents go unreported.
That is exactly what allowed NIH to note a monkey bite in a committee memo and call it handled.
RFK Jr. is now cleaning it out – and Sheehy's IG referral gives investigators subpoena power to find out how many others from Fauci's network are still holding badges at federal biolabs.
The FBI investigation is active.
The question every American deserves answered: who else from Fauci's network is still walking into a federal biolab every morning – and what are they bringing home?
Sources:
- Senator Tim Sheehy, "Sheehy Calls for HHS Investigation into Alleged Misconduct by Rocky Mountain Laboratories," Sheehy.senate.gov, May 27, 2026.
- Paul Thacker, "EXCLUSIVE: NIH Virologist Vincent Munster Caught Smuggling Deadly Pathogens into U.S., FBI Investigating," Disinformation Chronicle, May 5, 2026.
- Laura Loomer, "EXCLUSIVE: RFK Jr. Confirms HHS Referred NIH Virologist and Whistleblower Allegations to FBI," Loomered.com, May 12, 2026.
- Tennessee Star, "Full Coverup Mode: Lawmakers Want Answers on Virus Smuggling to Federal Lab, Alleged Monkey Bite," Tennessee Star, May 29, 2026.
- Gateway Pundit, "FBI Has Reportedly Launched a Criminal Probe into Fauci's Bat Virus Mad Scientist Vincent Munster," Gateway Pundit, May 2026.
