US drops charges against Russian researcher facing deportation

Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts on Tuesday dropped charges against a Russian researcher at Harvard University who was threatened with deportation to her country, where she feared political persecution, for illegally smuggling biological samples into the United States.

Kseniia Petrova was arrested by immigration police (ICE) in February 2025 at Boston airport as she returned from a trip to Paris, for failing to declare samples of frog embryos that she was carrying in her luggage.

She was told that her visa was revoked and that she would be deported to Russia, where according to her lawyers she feared being arrested for having participated in political demonstrations, in particular against the invasion of Ukraine. Criminal proceedings were subsequently brought against her for smuggling, punishable by a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. She was detained for several months in a detention center in Louisiana.

In a court document, the prosecution considers that “at this stage, the resource cost of continuing this procedure exceeds the public interest in bringing it to its conclusion”. According to her defense, Kseniia Petrova was not carrying anything dangerous or illegal, and customs officers at Boston International Airport did not have the legal authority "to revoke her visa or arrest her."