NEWS ALERT: Federal authorities file additional charges against Chinese-linked biolab in California

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From Fox News: Federal authorities announced new charges against the operators of an illegal underground biolab found in a Central California community last fall.

Jia Bei Zhu, 62, a citizen of China, was previously indicted for distributing bogus and misbranded COVID-19 test kits in violation of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. He was also charged with making false statements to authorities about his identity and involvement with the biolabs.

Additional charges have now been filed against Zhaoyan Wang, 38, also a citizen of China, who officials described as a “romantic and business partner.”

According to court documents, from August 2020 through March 2023, Zhu and Wang conspired to defraud buyers of UMI and PBI’s COVID-19 test kits. They imported hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 test kits from Ai De Ltd., which was a company in China that they controlled, and falsely represented to the buyers that the test kits were made in the United States.

They illegally imported the COVID-19 test kits, which they were not approved to import, by falsely declaring them as pregnancy test kits, which they were approved to import, the DOJ announced.

In a press release on Thursday, the Justice Department provided the following details:

Zhu and Wang also falsely represented to the buyers that UMI and PBI could make up to 100,000 COVID-19 test kits per week in the United States and that the test kits were made in connection with other labs that were certified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Finally, they falsely represented to the buyers that the test kits were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Zhu and Wang made over $1.7 million through their fraud.

When buyers requested to inspect UMI and PBI’s facilities in Fresno and Reedley, Zhu and Wang denied them access and fabricated reasons for the denial. The fabricated reasons included that the facilities were undergoing construction and renovation, and that proprietary and confidential information and technology was inside. In reality, however, they did not want the buyers to know that UMI and PBI were obtaining the COVID-19 test kits from China.

Zhu is currently detained in custody pending his federal trial. His next status conference is scheduled for Sept. 11, 2024. Wang is not in custody.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) announced disturbing details on the case last November:

Following the discovery of a secret, illegal Chinese bio lab in California, I requested an investigation by the House. Yesterday, the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released its highly disturbing report.

The lab was run by an international fugitive from China named Jiabei “Jesse” Zhu. After running various state-connected companies in China, he moved to Canada, where he set up dozens of corporations to “steal valuable American intellectual property and unlawfully transfer” it to China.

The Supreme Court of British Columbia found he committed “fraud on an epic scale,” resulting in a $330 million judgment. He then fled to America, assumed the alias David He, and set up several more companies, including the one behind the bio lab.

The lab was discovered nearly a year ago, when a code inspector came upon a suspicious warehouse in Reedley, CA. Inside, she found many Chinese nationals “wearing white lab coats, glasses, masks, and latex gloves,” along with “thousands of vials of biological substances” and 1,000 mice.

It was later learned these were “transgenic” mice “genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus.” A further inspection found “blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums” along with thousands of vials of “suspected biological material.” Some of the vials were labeled with the names of infectious agents, while others were labeled in a “code” that was never deciphered.

At first, the CDC refused to investigate, and even hung-up on local officials who asked for help. After the local Congressman got involved, the CDC did an inspection and found “at least 20 potentially infectious agents, including HIV, Tuberculosis, and the deadliest known form of Malaria.”

Yet the CDC did not bother to test any samples, even those with unknown contents, making it “impossible for the Select Committee to fully assess the potential risks that this specific facility posed to the community.” The Select Committee report calls this “baffling.” Later, local officials discovered a refrigerator in the lab labeled “Ebola.”

While the supposed purpose of the lab was to sell test kits, in fact all the company did was buy counterfeit kits from China and re-sell them in the United States. Thus, there was a “lack of apparent legitimate (or even profit-motivated criminal) motive in the operation of the illegal facility.”

This raises the question as to the true purpose of the lab – especially given that Jesse Zhuhe, its criminal operator, was “receiving unexplained payments via wire transfer” from Chinese banks. The report further notes that “no one knows whether there are other unknown biolabs because there is no monitoring system in place.”

In May of this year, Kiley shared the following update:

The secret Chinese bio lab discovered in California is alarming. What is even more alarming is the CDC’s indifference to the illegal lab, which was run by an international fugitive with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

For months the CDC refused to investigate, and even hung-up on local officials who asked for help. Eventually, political pressure forced the CDC to do an inspection, which revealed “at least 20 potentially infectious agents, including HIV, Tuberculosis, and the deadliest known form of Malaria.”

Yet the CDC did not bother to test any samples, even those with labels written in a secret code, making it “impossible to fully assess the potential risks that this specific facility posed to the community.” Later, local officials discovered a refrigerator in the lab labeled “Ebola,” which somehow escaped the CDC’s notice.

I have demanded answers of CDC Director Mandy Cohen and am sponsoring legislation to detect any other such labs that may be secretly operating in the United States.

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