Federal and local authorities are investigating suspected illegal biological laboratories in Las Vegas and California’s Central Valley linked to a Chinese national accused by Congressional investigators of ties to a PRC military-civil fusion enterprise, who spent a decade operating what Canadian courts found was a systematic technology-theft operation from British Columbia before fleeing south with a $330 million fraud judgment against him.
The FBI and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department executed search warrants over the weekend at two residences connected to Jiabei “Jesse” Zhu, a 62-year-old Chinese citizen already under federal indictment for operating an illegal biolab in Reedley, California that contained labeled samples of at least 20 infectious agents including HIV, tuberculosis, and what the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party described as “the deadliest known form of malaria.”
Las Vegas Metro Sheriff Kevin McMahill confirmed Monday that investigators recovered over 1,000 samples of biological material “consistent in appearance” with items found in the California facility.
“This can’t keep happening,” Congressman Kevin Kiley said after the Las Vegas raid, calling for immediate hearings on bipartisan legislation he introduced with Representatives Costa and David Valadao. “The illegal bio lab just raided in Las Vegas was operated by the same LLC and Chinese nationals as the one discovered in Reedley.”
In the Reedley case, investigators discovered nearly 1,000 bioengineered laboratory mice, infectious agents including E. Coli, malaria, various chemicals, medical waste, blood, tissue, serum, body fluid samples, and illegal pregnancy tests, Congressman Jim Costa noted, citing the Select Committee’s review.
Property records show both the Reedley warehouse and the Las Vegas homes are owned by the same limited-liability company whose officers include Zhu and his business partner Zhaoyan Wang, both Chinese citizens facing federal trial in April 2026 on charges of distributing hundreds of thousands of misbranded COVID-19 and other testing kits.
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party’s investigation frames Zhu as a Chinese citizen from Canada “associated with PRC-government linked companies” and with direct ties to state enterprises and military-civil fusion networks.
Photos from their review show freezers packed with numerous small bottles and sample containers holding what the caption identifies as blood and other fluids, plus sealed bags labeled with apparent drug shorthand (for example “MDMA,” “Coca,” and “Met”), suggesting the freezers were being used to store both biological materials and suspected narcotics-related items.
The report states that in the early 2000s, Zhu served as vice chairman of Henan Pioneer Aide Biological Engineering Company Limited, a PRC state-controlled enterprise whose corporate ownership structure the Committee mapped to show interlacing with state-linked financing channels running through China Development Bank and its affiliated funds, the National Council for Social Security Fund, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.
The report explicitly flags Chinese military exposure, noting that beneficial owners operated through passthrough joint-venture companies including Henan Investment Group Company Limited, which the Committee describes as “involved in military-civil fusion.”
The Select Committee documented that Zhu’s work in cattle genetics connected to strategic PRC priorities.
As Zhu stated in documents obtained from the Reedley Biolab, “the Company is looking to seize the opportunity to develop the operational platform for the rapid growth in the Chinese dairy industry, fulfilling [PRC] Premier [and CCP Politburo Member] Wen Jiabao’s wish to ‘provide every Chinese, especially children, sufficient milk every day.’”
At that time, China faced a pressing milk crisis.
Hellbound and Down 