A Wuhan-style clandestine biolab containing dangerous pathogens has been discovered in California, and it was being operated by a Chinese national.
Here’s the news via the LA times:
Code enforcement officer Jesalyn Harper discovered a clandestine biolab in a Reedley, Calif., warehouse containing dangerous pathogens including HIV, malaria, COVID-19 and Ebola.
The facility was allegedly operated by a Chinese national involved in smuggling counterfeit COVID tests while receiving millions in unexplained payments from China.
A congressional investigation revealed critical gaps in U.S. regulations governing unlicensed biolabs, raising major national security and public health concerns.
The case of a lifetime started with a putrid smell and a green garden hose sticking out of the side of a supposedly vacant warehouse in California farm country.
Inside the sprawling building on I Street in Reedley, code enforcement officer Jesalyn Harper found vials filled with liquid — some marked in English or Chinese, others with just a code — that bore frightening labels such as “Malaria,” “COVID-19” and “HIV.” Refrigerators, lined up in columns along a wall, had labels that read “blood” and “Ebola.”
As she walked deeper into the warehouse, passing lab workers filling pregnancy test kits, she located the source of the smell that had brought her there — droppings from 1,000 lab-tested mice, she told The Times during a recent interview. The workers were nice enough, she said, but when she started asking questions she could feel the mood change.
“I realized I’m in trouble, and I need to get out of this building without tipping them off that I’m scared,” Harper said.
Her discovery blew open an elaborate criminal case with ties to California, Las Vegas and China. The investigation in Reedley found that the lab was part of an elaborate scheme to import COVID tests from China and pass them off as American-made.
But there are some who fear the operation was much more complex than that. A congressional committee uncovered payments topping $1 million made to the operator of the Reedley business from banks in the People’s Republic of China.
The defendant in the case, Jia Bei Zhu, a Chinese national, has not been charged with running an illicit biolab and his attorney has denied it. The vials discovered in Reedley were never tested.
But for some officials, the questions left unanswered from that lab in Reedley, then Nevada, underscore America’s vulnerability to unregulated biohazards that could be used by bad actors for criminal behavior and even terrorism.
The case has become a rallying cry for lawmakers and others to try to close loopholes that they say underregulate the world of invisible biolabs across the country. A report published by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said that “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,” the report concluded.
https://therightscoop.com/breaking-clandestine-wuhan-biolab-discovered-in-california-with-dangerous-pathogens/
“I realized I’m in trouble, and I need to get out of this building without tipping them off that I’m scared,” Harper said.
Her discovery blew open an elaborate criminal case with ties to California, Las Vegas and China. The investigation in Reedley found that the lab was part of an elaborate scheme to import COVID tests from China and pass them off as American-made.
But there are some who fear the operation was much more complex than that. A congressional committee uncovered payments topping $1 million made to the operator of the Reedley business from banks in the People’s Republic of China.
The defendant in the case, Jia Bei Zhu, a Chinese national, has not been charged with running an illicit biolab and his attorney has denied it. The vials discovered in Reedley were never tested.
But for some officials, the questions left unanswered from that lab in Reedley, then Nevada, underscore America’s vulnerability to unregulated biohazards that could be used by bad actors for criminal behavior and even terrorism.
The case has become a rallying cry for lawmakers and others to try to close loopholes that they say underregulate the world of invisible biolabs across the country. A report published by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said that “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,” the report concluded.
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