A man accused of running an illegal biolab in the Las Vegas suburbs is scheduled to appear Friday in federal court, suspected of having ties to a Chinese national known for operating a lab in California that experimented with infectious diseases.
The FBI raided the home on Saturday of Ori Solomon, 55, who police said operated a suspected laboratory that included “refrigerators with vials containing unknown liquids.”
Court documents said federal agents seized four handguns and two rifles from the residence. Mr. Solomon, who has passports from France and Israel, is in the country on a work visa and is not allowed to possess any guns.
Mr. Solomon faces additional charges of disposing of hazardous waste in state court.
A tipster last month informed police about medical waste at the Las Vegas residence, KLAS-TV first reported.
Court documents said authorities investigated the home after a person reported the garage remained locked all the time and smelled “like a hospital — not like a clean hospital but more of a foul, stale, stagnant air smell.”
Two people who entered the home’s garage became “deathly ill” and were bedridden for days, the filing said. The tipster said several people had gotten sick after visiting the residence, which doubled as an Airbnb rental home.
The home in the Vegas suburbs may be linked to the Chinese Communist Party, authorities said.
Clark County records show the residence is associated with a limited liability company that operated a similar, illegal biolab in California that federal agents shut down three years ago.
The man charged in that case, Jia Bei Zhu, is a Chinese national who allegedly ran several state-connected companies in China.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, California Republican, cited a congressional report that says Mr. Zhu later moved to Canada and set up dozens of corporations to “steal valuable American intellectual property and unlawfully transfer it to China.”
After Canadian authorities accused Mr. Zhu of committing “fraud on an epic scale,” he fled to the U.S. and started multiple businesses, including the illegal biolab in Reedley, California, the report says.
State inspectors in December 2022 first came across the Reedley lab, which was only licensed to sell COVID-19 and pregnancy tests, the report states.
The inspectors found Chinese nationals in the lab who were running experiments on mice that were “genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus,” according to the congressional report.
Mr. Kiley said federal lawmakers prodded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to look into the lab, where investigators discovered “at least 20 potentially infectious agents, including HIV, tuberculosis, and the deadliest known form of malaria.”
The congressional report says investigators also found a refrigerator in the lab that was labeled “Ebola.”
Mr. Kiley, with Rep. Jim Costa, California Democrat, introduced a bill that would require the Department of Health and Human Services to scrutinize businesses working with “highly pathogenic agents.”
“This can’t keep happening,” Mr. Kiley said in a statement. “The federal government must do more to stop illegal labs from operating in our communities. This bipartisan bill closes loopholes that allow dangerous facilities like these to operate under the radar.”
Mr. Zhu remains behind bars on charges of manufacturing and distributing misbranded medical devices and for making false statements to the Food and Drug Administration. He is scheduled to go to trial in April.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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