Fresno County Assistant Director of Public Health Joe Prado, right, projects images of refrigerators, freezers and various liquids found in a Reedley warehouse run by a Chinese-owned company under investigation for operating illegally, during a timeline presentation at the Fresno County Board of Supervisor’s meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023.
CRAIG KOHLRUSS
Fresno Bee file
The FBI raided a Las Vegas home earlier this month and found refrigerators with vials of unknown liquids, and then searched a Reedley warehouse that has been linked to the same suspects.
The case traces back to 2022, when a Reedley city code enforcement officer discovered an illegal biolab stocked with infectious agents, lab mice and misbranded COVID-19 test kits.
Here are the highlights of recent events and how the Las Vegas raid ties into the years-old case in Fresno County.
Property records link the Las Vegas home to David Destiny Discovery LLC, a company tracing back to Jia Bei Zhu and Zhaoyan Wang — the same pair indicted after the 2022 Reedley lab discovery. Zhu’s attorney Anthony Capozzi told AP his client was “not involved in any kind of a biolab being conducted in a home in Las Vegas.” A dead mouse found in a cage in a clandestine Reedley laboratory is surrounded by decaying carcasses of mice that died previously in this photo taken by city code enforcement officers in April 2023. A consulting veterinarian specializing in care of laboratory animals described conditions for mice at the lab as “terrible” and “inhumane.” City of Reedley Code Enforcement The Reedley warehouse, found by code enforcement officer Jesalyn Harper following up on an anonymous complaint in December 2022, contained at least 20 potentially infectious agents including COVID-19, HIV, hepatitis B and C, malaria and rubella, according to the CDC.
Fresno City Councilmembers Garry Bredefeld, left, and Miguel Arias hold a news conference to discuss documents pertaining the Reedley bio lab at Fresno City Hall on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com Fresno County and Reedley spent $350,000 cleaning up the warehouse with no federal funding and then fought a $30 million lawsuit from the lab’s operators over destroyed materials. “We were told to figure it out,” Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig said.
Federal investigators allege that Jia Bei Zhu, also known as Qiang “David” He, is the man behind a clandestine Chinese-run lab found operating illegally in Reedley in late 2022. U.S. Food & Drug Administration Zhu, also known as David He, was charged in 2023 with lying to regulators, distributing misbranded medical devices, conspiracy and wire fraud. He remains in custody with a trial set for late April.Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni called the Las Vegas discovery a national security concern. “There are probably other labs out there,” he said. “That is a scary thought.”
The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by journalists.
This story was originally published February 19, 2026 at 8:09 AM.
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The Fresno Bee
Christopher Kirkpatrick is senior editor of The Fresno Bee and Vida en el Valle.