He fled B.C. in 2015. Now he is linked to 2 suspicious biolabs in the United States
When? Jessie Jia-Bei Zhu Left in British Columbia in 2015, the 62-year-old was sentenced to six months in jail and had a multimillion-dollar BC Supreme Court judgment hanging over his head – the result of his failed plans for global domination of the lucrative bull semen industry.
Nearly a decade later, the shrewd entrepreneur’s name has resurfaced in the US in connection with equally bizarre – though disturbing – allegations, involving a pair of biolabs in California and Nevada filled with vials of potentially dangerous substances.
Questions about Zhu have been swirling since authorities last weekend found a suspicious laboratory in the Las Vegas home he proposed to stay in while awaiting trial for distributing adulterated COVID-19 tests throughout the United States.
Zhu – who is both a Chinese and Canadian citizen – lost that application for release.
Instead, he remains in a pre-trial jail cell where he has been living since his arrest in 2023 following the discovery of a separate biological laboratory in Fresno County, California, filled with test mice and vials of fluids labeled as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
It is the same correctional facility from where Zhu – who claims he is innocent of all charges – is battling efforts by corporate giant XY LLC to collect the total amount exceeding BC Supreme Court judgments. $270 million for theft of valuable bull sexing technology.
Evidence cited in those trials may provide some insight into the problems Zhu faces today.
“The law is strong,” Zhu said in an email, at one point quoted in one of the scathing rulings against him.
“But the bandits are ten times stronger.”
‘Defeat the American attacker’
CBC News has reviewed court documents related to Zhu in both Canadian and U.S. courts. The records shed light on the complex path that brought him to the limelight in both countries.
The Canadian proceedings also raise questions about how companies linked to Zhu received government grants and linked investments to immigration, committing what a judge called “fraud against the Canadian government.”
According to US court documents, Zhu moved to Canada from China in 1988, lived in BC and traveled extensively in the United States before leaving Canada forever in 2015 – when he was recorded flying into Los Angeles, his last recorded cross-border visit.
Around the same time, a lawyer for Zhu told a BC Supreme Court judge that his client “Afraid to step into this jurisdiction that they will be arrested” – in relation to a six-month sentence for civil contempt of court related to the XY LLC lawsuit.
The contempt ruling followed an $8.5 million verdict against Zhu and a web of companies it found it had used to obtain XY LLC’s confidential technology that allows separating female and male chromosomes in bull sperm.
In defiance of that ruling, Zhu was accused of setting up a new entity “for the purpose of secretly producing sexual semen using XY’s technology” through a complex shell game that involved retrofitted machines and a plan to sell the semen and technology in China.
In WeChat conversations, Zhu talked about his plan to break them by creating XY.Feel at all times that the sword of Damocles is over their head.”
One judge called them “somewhat dramatic”. At one point, Zhu said he wanted to “defeat the American aggressor and the wild ambitious wolf!”
Instead, it obtained a second judgment against him – one of the largest ever issued in a BC court – of $270 million in damages. But by that time Zhu had left.
a shocking discovery
According to a report by the US Congressional Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Zhu next came into the public eye when a law enforcement officer in Reedley, California “noticed a green garden hose protruding from a hole drilled in the side of a warehouse.”
Upon entering, he found “laboratory equipment, manufacturing equipment, and medical-grade freezers.”
“Inside, he found thousands of vials of biological material. Many were unlabeled. Others were labeled in a foreign language, later identified as Mandarin. Others still were labeled in some kind of code. However, some vials were labeled in English,” the report said.
“Some of these labels listed substances that (officials) did not recognize at the time. However, they did recognize names listed on many of the labels, such as HIV.”
According to the congressional report, authorities discovered that the facility was set up by Zhu – who was now using the name David He. The report said samples seized at the facility were never tested, despite concerns that they could point to cross-border transport of pathogens.
Following an investigation, Zhu was accused of selling hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 testing kits across the US without obtaining pre-market approval, pre-market clearance or emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration.
Zhu has filed a civil lawsuit seeking damages from civil and public health officials in the US in connection with the raid on the California facility, claiming officials lied about the laboratory being dangerous and operated illegally.
He claims he and his company were “dragged through the mud”, “portrayed as operating an ‘illegal Chinese laboratory’ and engaging in bioterrorism, although there was not even a hint of factual support for any of the allegations.”
The congressional report called for greater oversight of laboratories engaging in pathogen studies to “promote responsible research as well as protect Americans.”
The report concluded, “A troubling point is that no one knows whether there are other unidentified biolabs in the United States because there is no surveillance system in place.”
link to las vegas
Last weekend, FBI agents returned to the California lab in support of an investigation that began the previous day with a police raid of a Las Vegas home suspected of containing a biolab.
In a statement, police drew links to Zhu, noting that the home was owned by a man who was already in federal custody in connection with the biolab in Reedley.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill told a news conference that three men were renting rooms in the house, but were not involved in the investigation.
He said investigators used a tactical robot to enter a closed garage, where they found hazardous materials.
“Investigators observed several refrigerators, a freezer and other laboratory type equipment, as well as several bottles and jugs containing unknown liquids,” McMahill said.
“These objects, importantly, were consistent in appearance with the objects found and described in the Reedley California laboratory investigation.”
Police arrested Ori Solomon, 55, the property manager of the Las Vegas house, on charges of handling and discharging hazardous waste.
According to a motion for review of Zhu’s custody order filed in January 2025, Zhu proposed to Solomon and another man as third-party custodians in a scheme that would have seen him live in his Las Vegas home with an ankle bracelet and GPS monitoring.
Zhu is not accused of any wrongdoing in the Las Vegas case.
His lawyer did not respond to CBC News’ email requesting comment, but in a statement quoted by The Associated Press, Anthony Capozzi said Zhu is scheduled to be tried in April in connection with the COVID kits and has been jailed for three years.
“He is not involved in any type of biolab being conducted in a house in Las Vegas,” Capozzi said.
“We are unaware of what occurred at that residence.”
‘Fraud of epic proportions’
Meanwhile, XY LLC continues in its efforts to enforce its BC Supreme Court rulings in Canada and Hong Kong, where the company is also fighting Zhu in court.
The company said it had no comment on incidents involving Zhu because the lawsuit is pending in a Canadian court.
XY LLC filed a civil claim against Zhu and others in 2023 to obtain a default judgment regarding the original $8.5 million award.
Zhu has filed a response to the lawsuit from jail, and XY LLC has obtained an order forcing it to advise the company of the source of the money spent on legal fees, including the fees paid to Capozzi.
The company’s legal filings include two pages of quotes from the judgment against Zhu, which accuses him of “large-scale fraud” and “highly reprehensible conduct.”
Zhu recently applied to set aside the default judgment, and then applied to postpone the hearing of his application.
In a response, the company asked a judge to consider “the history of the case.”
“Mr. Zhu has repeatedly engaged in delaying tactics before this court in an effort to ‘obstruct the legal process in British Columbia,'” the company wrote in submissions filed last month.
“This stay request, and the underlying application as a whole (to set aside the default order), is another example of these tactics.”
