A Las Vegas home the FBI raided Saturday — alleged to contain a potential biological laboratory — is owned by a Chinese-run company connected to an illegal biolab in California, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Local Las Vegas authorities and the FBI found “refrigerators with vials containing unknown liquids” inside the Nevada home, and the city’s Metro SWAT team served a warrant to search the home for a “biological laboratory,” according to multiple local outlets. The registered agent of the limited liability company (LLC) that bought the Las Vegas home in 2022 is the same Chinese national in federal custody as part of the ongoing investigation into the illegal California biolab, the Hill reported.
Jia Bei Zhu, 64, and his romantic business partner, Zhaoyan Wang, are listed as owners of the Sugar Springs residence, property records show, and Zhu’s LLC appears to also own a warehouse location in Las Vegas, according to the Hill.
Zhu was arrested in October 2023 for manufacturing and distributing misbranded medical devices from an illegal biolab in Reedley, Ca. Some products, such as pregnancy tests, would also be shipped from China to an address in Las Vegas, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Investigators found “pathogen-labeled containers” with labels such as “dengue fever,” “HIV” and “malaria,” along with 1,000 mice kept in inhumane, overcrowded conditions at the California biolab, multiple outlets reported. Zhu used Prestige Biotech Inc. (PBI) and its successor, Universal Meditech Inc. (UMI), to operate the illegal California lab, and would ship hundreds of thousands of test kits — including pregnancy tests, HIV tests, clinical urinalysis tests and COVID-19 tests, court filings show
“Inside the Reedley Biolab, officials observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums; and thousands of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material,’ raising the concern that they contained pathogens,” according to a federal report from the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Some of these vials were labeled with the names of pathogens in English or Mandarin.
Zhu and others allegedly manufactured and sold the test kits from December 2020 to March 2023, according to a criminal complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. Zhu denied any knowledge of manufacturing or distribution history and, according to the DOJ, made false statements about being hired by UMI and PBI.
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