US Infiltration By Chinese Biolabs

Has your Air BNB ever been a biolab? If you’ve traveled to Las Vegas lately, the answer might be yes.

On January 31, police searched a Las Vegas home and found a “possible biological laboratory”, as the report initially stated. This gives a chilling new meaning about what might be behind that locked door at your vacation rental. You know, the one closet that is locked, or the one unit that is locked, or the garage that is locked, preventing your access? Most people assume those locked closets just have the owners’ personal items or skis and bikes. Think again.

The home had been under surveillance by the FBI before they raided it with the help of Las Vegas Metro police. The FBI had purportedly received tips from guests who had stayed at the home, many of whom had become ill while staying there.

During the raid, police found HIV and malaria infectious agents at the home on Sugar Springs Drive near Washington Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard. Police also found refrigerators with unmarked vials containing unknown liquids. Police have not further elaborated on exactly what was found in the home, but samples were shipped to an FBI lab for testing.

Related Biolab Incidents

In a stunning development, the Las Vegas biolab is likely connected to a similar biolab found in 2023 in California. Police found the same infectious agents at that home. The Nevada and California homes are both tied to the same LLC company that is part of the ongoing federal case in California where David He, a Chinese citizen, faces federal charges for manufacturing and distributing medical devices.

The California biolab is in Fresno County in Reedly, California where police found blood, tissue, bodily fluid samples, and serums—thousands of unlabeled vials that were suspected biological material and pathogenic material. The vials that were labeled had names of pathogens in both English and Mandarin—labels including HIV, malaria and dengue fever. Bags labeled with abbreviations for amphetamine, cocaine, and methamphetamine were also found at the Reedly house. The Reedly house also contained 1,000 genetically modified mice, and misbranded COVID-19 test kits. The Reedly lab operated through companies like Prestige Biotech and Universal Medtech.

David He (Jia Bei Zhu ) has been in federal custody ahead of the Reedly trial this spring. So far, He has not been officially linked to the Las Vegas home but he is definitely tied to both properties. Another man, Ori Solomon, age 55, was taken into custody in Vegas. He is listed as the registered agent of the LLC, based in Las Vegas, that owns the Sugar Springs Drive property. The LLC purchased that home in 2022, and the company also appears to have a warehouse in Las Vegas. Solomon says he no longer runs the companies even though he was still listed as the registered agent. Solomon was subsequently released by police and has not been charged with a crime but did surrender his Israeli and French passports and was ordered to stay within the continental United States. If he leaves Las Vegas, he must inform the court. Later, records show that Solomon lived in one of the two Vegas homes with three children. Solomon is in the US on a non-immigrant visa and cannot own or possess guns. Several guns were taken from the property, and Solomon reportedly called family members from jail to ask if any guns were left after the search. Solomon faces a state charge involving hazardous waste, but that is his only charge at the time. He was not charged with any gun-related charges.

Police show that He and Solomon did communicate in the month before the raid.

We Have Been Infiltrated

In the last few months, we’ve heard about Chinese agents smuggling a crop fungus into the country, purportedly to do massive agricultural harm to the US. Professors, like the one at Texas A&M University, have been arrested for hiding ties to their Chinese universities.

In reality, our country was infiltrated years ago. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed it last week, saying his agency has reinitiated an aggressive counterintelligence offensive against China and its Communist Party (CCP). The effort was sidelined during the Biden presidency, with Patel saying that administration buried the truth about Beijing-tied dangerous biolabs on U.S. soil. You really do have to wonder why the Biden administration would shut down the China Initiative, the FBI’s main counterintelligence effort to find Chinese security threats inside academia. The shutdown of that program led to an explosion of CCP activities on US soil.

Patel specifically mentioned the Chinese smuggling cases, saying these people intentionally sought to attack US industry. He pointed to the federal arrests of Chinese students at the University of Michigan. These three researchers successfully imported illegal biohazardous materials and pathogens into the US to destroy our agricultural and bioseed industries. Read more about the case of Chinese nationals Chengxuan Han, Yunqing Jian and Zunyong Liu, and their smuggling of the agroterrorism weapon Fusarium graminearum here.

Patel calls his effort swift action against a prioritized threat to national security and the American people. In the year Patel has been director, Chinese espionage arrests have increased 40 percent.

At least 20 Chinese scientists sitting inside prestigious American academia are members of the CCP. That is a conservative estimate. These scientists have access to the best cutting-edge labs the US has to offer. These scientists are typically tied to the People’s Liberation Army as well as Beijing’s defense sector, and have been directly linked with Chinese projects aimed at stealing US technology.

Patel recalled the Reedly case, stating that Christopher Wray’s FBI found no CCP connection. Patel says the evidence was buried. His FBI indeed found a connection, and is looking into why his predecessors intentionally misled the American public. As of February 7, Patel said the FBI was awaiting the lab results from the Las Vegas biolab; over 1,000 samples are being tested.

Is Congress Doing Anything?

Congress’ House Select Committee on the CCP also has concerns about David He’s ties to the CCP. Their report says that He served as the vice chairman of an enterprise controlled by the CCP prior to coming to America.  He has ties to a company that is a military-civilian partnership for the CCP, and He also chaired a second company that is a CCP defense firm.

When He got to the US, he hired an accountant to help him set up several US companies. These companies do have ties back to the CCP. Congress points to evidence that He stole American intellectual property and transferred it back to China; at the time he was in Canada. He and his associates have also been purchasing Chinese counterfeit test kits, repackaging them as made in the USA, and reselling them in the US. Congress shows that He received wire transfer payments from Chinese banks in amounts totaling more than $1 million. Here is Congress’ full report.

The report also sheds light on how the investigation was shut down by the FBI. A local law enforcement officer in Fresno County did refer the matter to the FBI. Two months later, the FBI informed the officer that it had closed the investigation because it could not find weapons of mass destruction on the California property. He was charged with federal offenses relating to fraud and false statements in an FDA-led investigation, but that is the extent of it.

Congress also cites the extreme incompetence of the CDC and their lack of response to the whole matter: “CDC’s response was inadequate and raises serious questions about its standard practices.”

What About the NIH?

Considering that the NIH funded the Wuhan lab’s COVID gain-of-function research, NIH can only improve from that dismal low point in the agency’s history.

NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya expressed his concerns that these labs were intentionally left to fly under the radar. He cites the lack of biosecurity in the Reedly and Las Vegas homes, and the tremendous risk posed to everyone around those homes. He stressed that the substances that have been publicly reported to have been in the home are extremely dangerous and that the US must do a better job of both preventing and detecting these pop-up labs.

Bhattacharya also said that the Trump administration is aggressively vetting Chinese scientists working inside the US, after decades of unmonitored close collaboration. Bhattarcharya went on to say that “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the US funded the rise in the Chinese biomedical research enterprise. He says the stories of foreign influence in universities goes back at least a couple of decades, and that means we likely have a LOT more to worry about than one Air BNB in Las Vegas.

We wrote about the NIH’s crackdown efforts here. This involved higher scrutiny over foreign subawards for NIH-backed research. In fact, the NIH no longer allows foreign subawards to be nested under the parent grant. Awards will not be made to proposals that include a subaward to a foreign entity.

Bhattacharya said on February 6 that the gravy train of the investments we made in China and other countries of concern is over.

While much more needs to be done by NIH, the FBI and Congress, these efforts are a good start. As for the rest of us, we need to stay diligent on how David He’s federal trial unfolds. And if you rent an Air BNB, be sure to poke around on those locked closet doors.