Scientist who brought frog embryos to Boston for cancer research is cleared of smuggling charges

BOSTON (AP) — U.S. prosecutors have dropped all criminal charges against a Russian scientist who was tossed into an immigration jail last year after she landed at a Boston airport with frog embryos intended for her cancer research at Harvard Medical School.Kseniia Petrova, 31, spent four months in detention following her arrest in early 2025 as she returned from a vacation in France, where she had stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples for research.She was questioned about the samples while passing through a customs checkpoint at Logan International Airport, then later charged with smuggling.A federal judge on Wednesday granted a request by prosecutors to dismiss those charges as well as counts alleging that she'd concealed facts and made false statements to government officials.Petrova told The Associated Press in an interview that she did not realize the items needed to be declared and was not trying to sneak any