Suspected illegal biolab found in Las Vegas

 

Investigators at the clandestine lab in Las Vegas. ABC News/LVMPD photo. 

A suspected illegal biolab has been found in Las Vegas Nevada, raising major security concerns. ABC News. 1000 biological samples were found in the lab and the samples are being studied. Police arrived at the residence in response to code violations, but called in the Joint Terrorism Task Force after the samples were found. One person was arrested in connection with the incident, the property manager Ori Solomon. The owner of the property, Jiabei Zhu, has been identified as the same man that was arrested in 2023 for running a similar lab in California that had samples of many pathogens, including HIV, Covid, Malaria and even Ebola. 

My Comment:

This is a major update to a story that has largely been memory holed. The existence of a biolab that supposedly had some very serious pathogens and mice to test them on was obviously deeply concerning and it seems like a secondary lab was found. 

The original case was rather chilling. Zhu was running a lab in California. The lab was being used to create fraudulent HIV and Covid tests. At least that was what he was charged with. The fraud explanation does not really explain why he would have samples from many other diseases like Malaria and Ebola. The presence of humanized mice for biological testing was extremely concerning as well. 

This raid appears to have been a storage site and not an active lab. Given that the materials were locked up in a garage and the only one arrested was the property manager, I don't think that this lab was being used for anything at the moment. I am guessing everything was put into storage after the original lab was raided. It was probably put there in hopes that Zhu would eventually be released and once that happened he could resume his activities. 

Was these labs biowarfare or just an extremely advanced fraud scheme? I am guessing it is fraud. The lab was not advanced enough to really accomplish the kinds of things you need to do for biowarfare. I guess pathogens can be made and weaponized at a home lab, but nothing the government has released has shown that is what they are doing. Plus the pathogens mentioned either are difficult to spread, like Malaria, TB, HIV or Ebola, or are ones already everywhere, like the Coronavirus. None of those are good for biowarfare. 

Of course it doesn't have to be a biowarfare lab for it to be a major threat. There was a real chance that there could have been an accidental release of a pathogen from either of these labs. The chances were higher in the Las Vegas case because apparently a family was living at the house that contained the lab. Like I mentioned above, none of these pathogens are easily spread but there absolutely could have been a minor outbreak because of the improper storage at this lab. It would have caused an extreme panic for a few cases of Ebola, for example, to pop up out of nowhere. 

People are hyping up the involvement of China, but that's an old issue. It does seem very likely that they were helping Zhu with the original lab. There is very little other explanation as to why this guy had all these pathogens. They were probably profiting off the fraud that Zhu was committing. It's just another example as how China does all kinds of nasty things like this.