A recent investigation conducted by the House Select Committee on the CCP uncovered new details about a secret Chinese biolab containing dangerous pathogens that operated in Reedley, California.
Disturbing new details exposed by this investigation include: the ability of the lab operator – who was a wanted fugitive – to acquire dangerous pathogens without raising suspicions, the lab’s connections to the Chinese government, as well as an apparent coverup of this threat to national security by the FBI and CDC.
Dangerous Pathogens in Secret California-Based Chinese Biolab
In December of 2022, a local Code Enforcement Officer discovered the presence of an illegal biolab in Reedley, California. After entering the facility, the officer observed several Chinese nationals working in a warehouse filled with thousands of vials of pathogens and biological substances.
While many of the vials were unlabeled, some were labeled in Mandarin, and others were labeled by codes. Only a few of the vials were labeled in English.
Source: “Investigation into the Reedley Biolab,” House Select Committee on the CCP, November 15, 2023.
Investigators later concluded the facility contained a minimum of 20 potentially infectious agents including Covid, HIV, Tuberculosis, the “deadliest known form of Malaria,” and Ebola – “one of the deadliest viruses known to humanity.”
According to the CDC, only Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) facilities with “the highest level of biological safety,” are authorized to handle Ebola. The House Select Committee report noted, “it is unclear how any non-BSL-4 facility, let alone the Reedley Biolab, would potentially be able to acquire this deadly pathogen in the first place.”
The assessments of the pathogens held in this facility were based entirely upon the container labels, as their contents were never tested by the CDC, despite the likelihood that the unmarked and coded vials contained additional dangerous pathogens. Since officials were unable to decipher the coded labels and none of the samples were tested, the full extent of the dangerous pathogens kept in this secret lab is unknown to this day.
Additionally, the illegal laboratory housed about 1,000 transgenic mice, genetically modified to catch and carry Covid as well as to simulate the human immune system. Aside from the pathogens stored in the facility, the mice, which were kept in filthy, overcrowded, and inhumane conditions, presented a potential biohazard.
Source: “Investigation into the Reedley Biolab,” House Select Committee on the CCP, November 15, 2023.
While the Reedley lab claimed they manufactured diagnostic test kits, investigators found evidence that the co-conspirators of this operation were, instead, buying fake Chinese test kits and fraudulently re-selling them to Americans with “Made in the USA” labels.
Contrary to Reedley lab’s claims, House investigators asserted that the Reedley lab contained pathogens, equipment and mice “that had no clear purpose” in the “fraudulent sale of fake test kits,” adding that “there is little to no market for test kits that would test the majority of the pathogens that the Reedley Biolab appeared to contain.”
The House Select report went on to state that “the apparent presence of Ebola samples at the Reedley Biolab is the clearest example of the lack of apparent legitimate (or even profit-motivated criminal) motive in the operation of the illegal facility. The need for Ebola tests is minimal and the potential market is extremely small.”
In other words, the Select Committee report implied, this illegal Chinese biolab operating inside the U.S. may have had other motives for storing containers of dangerous pathogens.
China-Backed Biolab Operated by Wanted Fugitive Who Hated America and Entered US Illegally
The laboratory was operated by a Chinese citizen, Jiabei “Jesse” Zhu, who entered America illegally under the false identity of “David He,” as a wanted fugitive from Canada. The fugitive, who faced a $ 330 million judgement, was charged with the theft of intellectual property from American corporations as part of a transnational criminal organization with connections to the People’s Republic of China.
While Zhu maintained deep ties to several Chinese government linked companies, he set up dozens of companies in Canada, China and elsewhere that engaged in the theft of intellectual property related to biological engineering techniques in the American cattle industry. Zhu served as the General Manager and Chairman of the Board of a Chinese cattle company, whose directors included an executive for a company on the U.S. Entity List and a Chinese defense firm.
According to court records related to the intellectual property theft case, Zhu made several alarming statements regarding “American imperialism.” In one instance, Zhu remarked that “the law is strong, but the outlaws are ten times stronger.” Additionally, Zhu claimed that his criminal activity helped to “defeat the American aggressor and wild ambitious wolf!”
Source: “Investigation into the Reedley Biolab,” House Select Committee on the CCP, November 15, 2023.
An accountant implicated in Zhu’s criminal enterprise, who helped the fugitive set up several companies in the U.S. after fleeing Canada, worked for organizations linked to CCP leadership, including groups that openly advocate for Chinese control over Taiwan, one of which is directly connected to a Chinese national from Nevada who is charged with a deadly shooting at a Taiwanese church in California last year.
Despite the facts that Zhu was a wanted criminal with ties to the Chinese government and radicalized groups who was living illegally in the U.S. and operating an unregistered laboratory, he and his co-conspirators were able to acquire dangerous pathogens from accredited American laboratories without raising suspicions.
The secret lab received “over $ 2 million of unexplained wire transfers from China,” in financial support for their operation, along with a $ 360,000 tax credit from Gavin Newsom’s Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.
Weeks ago, California Governor Newsom highlighted his close relationship with Chinese President Xi at a high-level meeting in Beijing. The pair met again in San Francisco on November 14, 2023, the day before the House Select Committee report on the Chinese biolab was released.
FBI Shut Down Investigation and CDC Refused to Cooperate
Local officials who made repeated efforts for federal assistance over their grave concerns about the public health risks of this laboratory faced resistance from the FBI and CDC.
Once the officer who originally discovered the illegal lab reported the incident to the FBI, approximately two months later, the FBI notified her that their investigation was shut down after the bureau determined “there were no weapons of mass destruction on the property.” Chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, Mike Gallagher, remarked, “The FBI said, well, we can’t investigate because there’s no ties to WMD, which is absurd.”
Local officials made repeated attempts over a period of several months to involve the CDC in this serious threat to public health. The CDC refused to speak with them on several occasions and on other occasions the CDC hung up on them in mid-conversation.
Likewise, local officials encountered similar resistance from other federal agencies with authority to handle matters of biohazardous substances. Only after local officials contacted their member of Congress, who advocated for federal assistance on Reedley’s behalf, did the CDC respond to their requests for investigation.
During their investigation which took place on May 2, 2023, the CDC refused to test samples to assess whether the labels listed on the containers were accurate. Furthermore, the CDC failed to even test the samples that were coded or unlabeled to determine if they contained more dangerous pathogens. The CDC also instructed state officials to refuse any testing of the transgenic mice.
The Select Committee report remarked that, “despite the probability that the unlabeled or coded vials contained additional unknown and dangerous pathogens, CDC officials refused to take any further investigative steps. The fact that they seemingly took the word of biolab operators and noted fraudsters and concluded that the named labels are wholly correct is also strange.”
The CDC continued to refuse to test samples after repeated pushback from local officials, even when the officials offered to pay for the entire costs incurred for testing the samples. “The CDC’s continuing refusal to test pathogens despite reasonable requests and the offer to pay from local officials facing a concerned populace simply does not make sense,” asserted the Select Committee report.
Furthermore, the CDC made false claims to the local officials that “it was illegal for the CDC to test any samples that were not expressly labeled as a Select Agent.” According to the House Select Committee investigation, “there does not appear to be any law prohibiting the CDC from testing unlabeled samples … Even if the CDC were limited to testing Select Agents, it falls well within its authority to test suspected Select Agents.”
Without testing any samples, the CDC determined that “there was no evidence of select agents or toxins,” at the site. In the absence of proper testing for select agents, the CDC knew that local officials would be required to destroy all of the samples in compliance with an abatement order.
Source: “Investigation into the Reedley Biolab,” House Select Committee on the CCP, November 15, 2023.
During the abatement process of destroying samples, local officials discovered a freezer labeled “Ebola,” which is a select agent. The individual containers held within the freezer were not labeled for Ebola. Conveniently, the CDC did not document an Ebola label on the freezer in its report, explaining that they “didn’t recall seeing a fridge labeled as Ebola.”
When local officials notified the CDC of their discovery of the Ebola-labeled freezer, the CDC misinformed them that when looking for select agents, they “typically look for the vial to be labeled as Ebola.” Without the Ebola labels expressly written on each of the containers within the freezer, the local officials were led to believe they were required to follow through with the abatement order to destroy the samples, which were never tested by the CDC.
The FBI’s and CDC’s complete failure to address the national security risks of this California biolab, that stored dangerous pathogens and was operated by a wanted fugitive with ties to the Chinese government, raises serious questions of a coverup.
Grave National Security Risk
As for the operator of the Reedley biolab, Zhu was later arrested on October 19, 2023, by federal agents as part of an FDA-led investigation into his fraudulent activity and false statements. No further investigation or charges were brought in regards to the dangerous pathogens held at the laboratory that posed a threat to public health and national security.
When asked about the number of these secret biolabs that may exist around the country, Chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, Mike Gallagher, responded, “the honest answer is, we don’t know,” adding that we have, “no safeguards in place in order to prevent potentially a hostile actor from buying dangerous pathogens in order to damage America.”
The House Select Committee report concluded, “at a minimum, the Reedley Biolab shows the profound threat that unlicensed and unknown biolabs pose to our country. At worst, this investigation revealed significant gaps in our nation’s defenses and pathogen-related regulations that present a grave national security risk that could be exploited in the future.”