Reedley, California and Las Vegas: how are illegal biolabs flying under our radar?
Good neighbors watch out for each other, their kids, their pets, and their properties. When dangerous people or things are discovered near us, it’s shocking and unsettling to think “what could have happened.” For the second time in recent history, an illegal biolab has been discovered in a residential neighborhood, and residents are asking why officials didn’t connect the dots earlier.
In 2023, an illegal biolab was discovered in a warehouse near a residential neighborhood in California’s Fresno County. It was owned by Chinese citizen Jia Bei Zhu, and inside investigators found "pathogen-labeled containers" with labels that included dengue fever, HIV, and malaria, as well as about 1,000 mice that officials believe were used as test subjects. (Bio lab found in Las Vegas is similar to scene discovered in California, raising questions from officials) Now another home in Las Vegas, also owned by Zhu, has been discovered to contain similar items to the California home: "multiple refrigerators, a freezer, and other laboratory-type equipment, along with numerous bottles and jugs containing unknown liquid substances" inside a locked garage. Zhu is a fugitive from British Columbia, Canada, which he fled in 2015 to evade judgment for stealing American intellectual property related to dairy farming and transferring it to China.
A 42 page report was compiled by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, a Congressional committee, after the investigation on the Reedley, California lab was completed. It describes how the lab was discovered by a local code enforcement officer in December 2022, but response from federal officials thereafter was most shocking. “Local officials spent months repeatedly trying to obtain assistance from the CDC, both directly and through CDPH. According to local officials, the CDC refused to speak with them and, on anumber of occasions, it was reported by local officials that the CDC hung up on them mid-conversation. Local officials were similarly unable to get any help from other federal agencies that may have concurrent authority to investigate and/or remediate the biohazardous substances found at the Reedley Biolab.
Ultimately, local officials contacted their local Member of Congress, Representative Jim Costa, asking him for help obtaining federal assistance. It was only then, following Congressman Costa’s advocacy on Reedley’s behalf, that the CDC responded to California state government and local official requests. After significant effort, local officials were able to convince the CDC to inspect the Reedley Biolab. (Investigation into the Reedley Biolab) They did so at the beginning of May, over 5 months after the discovery of the lab and after local officials had already notified the FBI, which “closed its investigation because the Bureau believed that there were no weapons of mass destruction on the property.”
The CDC reported that the facility contained “at least 20 potentially infectious agents,” including HIV, Tuberculosis, and the deadliest known form of Malaria. According to the workers that local officials encountered working in the warehouse, the mice were “transgenic” mice that simulate the human immune system, being “genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus.” The infectious agents fell into Risk Groups 2 and 3. Risk Group 2 agents “are associated with human disease which is rarely serious and for which preventive or therapeutic interventions are often available, and these agents represent a moderate risk to an individual but a low risk to the community.” Risk Group 3 pathogens are “associated with serious or lethal human disease for which preventive or therapeutic interventions may be available. These agents represent a high risk to an individual but a low risk to the community.” The CDC, however, refused to test many of the unlabeled or coded samples, which did not allow local officials to assess the risk to their community. They also left the local government to handle the abatement (disposal) of contents of the facility. During the abatement, a freezer labelled “Ebola” was discovered. Ebola is in Risk Group 4, which is the highest category for human infectious agents, and it’s also labelled as a “select agent”, agents which have the potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety. Unfortunately, samples from this freezer were destroyed and not retained for testing.
Fast forward to January 31, 2026, when the Las Vegas property was raided by a joint team of Las Vegas law enforcement and FBI, among other agencies. The fact that another property owned by Zhu is turning up some of the same equipment and biohazards three years later, is incredible. Zhu is imprisoned in a low-security prison in Kern County, California on charges related to the Reedley biolab, but has made or attempted to make almost 7000 phone calls between January 1, 2025 and January 23, 2026. These include calls to his wife in China, as well as to the property manager in Las Vegas.
A house cleaner who was hired to clean the home in Las Vegas became “deathly ill” after entering the garage where officials uncovered many containers of unknown substances. Her call to officials gave rise to the raid on the Las Vegas home. A web of property and business records shows that Zhu, who operated under several other names in Canada and the US, was able to continue his illegal lab operations from behind bars. (Infographic: Behind Las Vegas Suspected Biolab, Same Chinese National as California Lab) One of Zhu’s companies, Universal Meditech Inc. or UMI, also purchased hundreds of thousands of counterfeit test kits (testing for COVID-19, pregnancy, ovulation and certain narcotics) from China with the intent of re-selling them in the United States as “Made in the USA.”
Unlike the requirements to show identification and purpose for purchasing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in methamphetamine, or bulk fertilizers which are used in making explosives, the government does not monitor the supplies for these garage labs. As admitted by the Congressional Committee report on the Reedley lab, “there is no current requirement for acquiring pathogens (aside from Select Agents) or materials that allow for pathogenic research.” In addition, “the United States currently “does not conduct oversight of privately funded research, including enhancement of potential pandemic pathogens, if those pathogens are not select agents.” In other words, since the Ebola samples were not recovered, it seems that Zhu and his employees may only be charged with building code violations for these two incidents!
That leaves us, the ordinary public and local officers, to find significant dangerous biological threats in our communities. In California, a code-enforcement officer happened to see that a garden hose was poking out of a supposedly “abandoned” warehouse in December 2022. In Las Vegas, a house cleaner tipped off the investigation after she was sickened by the contents of the garage of the home she was hired to clean. This leads us to point out that it rests on everyone with a concern for their local community to open their eyes and ears for these kinds of illegal activities, and to persist until it’s investigated. We encourage anyone reading this article to also read the Congressional report on the Reedley biolab to understand what we’re up against: the threat of bioterrorism funded by China, incubated in unsuspecting warehouses and homes in residential areas. This is shocking but real. Housecleaners, nurses and therapists, delivery drivers, maintenance workers, local police officers and more all have sporadic access to homes and can report what “doesn’t seem right”. This goes for businesses that pollute or mishandle waste too. As someone who researched company ownership records online at one time, I can attest that it’s possible to find legal and financial connections on the internet as well. Individual people may only see one piece of evidence at a time, but our testimonies are very important, so speak up!
Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash
