According to Fresno County authorities, a months-long investigation into a rural California warehouse discovered an illegal laboratory loaded with infectious agents, medical waste, and hundreds of mice bioengineered “to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus.”
Prestige Biotech, a Chinese medical corporation registered in Nevada, was running the unlicensed facility in Reedley, California, a small city around 24 miles southeast of Fresno, according to health and licensing officials. According to Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba, the company’s purpose was to be a diagnostics laboratory.
“They never had a business license,” Zieba told USA TODAY. “The city was completely unaware that they were in this building, operating under the cover of night.”
According to Zieba, the Fresno County Public Health Department began its inquiry into the facility in December 2022 after a code enforcement officer noticed a garden hose attached to a building that was assumed to be abandoned and had no valid business license.
According to court records, a further investigation in March discovered that the facility housed numerous chemicals, suspected biological materials, bodily fluids, and hundreds of lab mice, among other lab equipment.
Fresno County’s Shocking Discovery
County public health officials claimed they also discovered COVID-19 and pregnancy tests, which they suspect were developed on-site.
“Being a small, rural town of 26,000 − walking into what we believed to be a vacant building and finding lab supplies, live white mice … was fairly shocking,” Zieba said.
After multiple attempts to contact Prestige Biotech, Fresno County officials accuse the corporation of withholding information and failing to comply with requests, such as presenting a hazardous and medical waste disposal plan.
According to court records, Fresno County Public Health employees completed biological abatement work on all items discovered in the facility by July 7. New York University sues janitor who turned off laboratory freezer due to ‘annoying’ alarms ruined decades of research, college claims in suit
At least 20 infectious agents were discovered by the CDC
Because the warehouse was private property, officials had to conduct a separate investigation for several weeks, according to Zieba. When authorities discovered that people were working inside the structure, federal, state, and local agencies, including the county health department and the FBI, joined the investigation, according to Zieba. In March, authorities were able to serve an inspection warrant.
“Certain rooms of the warehouse were found to contain several vessels of liquid and various apparatus,” court documents said. “Fresno County Public Health staff also observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums; and thousands of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material.”
According to court filings, hundreds of mice were also discovered at the warehouse, where they were “kept in inadequate conditions in overcrowded cages” with no food or water. The mice were “genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID virus,” according to a Prestige Biotech partner, according to the docs.
In April, the city collected the mice and exterminated 773 of them under an abatement warrant. According to court filings, about 180 mice had already died.
About 30 freezers and refrigerators, some set to minus 80 degrees, were discovered, according to Zieba, who claimed that authorities called in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to court records, the CDC discovered at least 20 potentially pathogenic organisms.
“Ultimately, what we did find is some viruses, such as HIV, COVID, chlamydia, rubella, malaria, things of that nature,” Zieba said.
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What exactly is Prestige Biotech?
According to court records, Prestige Biotech has been operating the unauthorized and unregulated laboratory since October 2022.
Emails between city officials and the company’s president, Xiuquin Yao, revealed that Prestige Biotech had acquired assets from the now-defunct Universal Meditech Inc. (UMI). According to court filings, Prestige Biotech was a creditor to UMI and later became its successor.
According to court records, the valuables were then transferred from a Fresno location to the Reedley warehouse.
Except for UMI’s Fresno site, authorities were unable to locate any California-based addresses affiliated with the company. Other addresses offered, according to court filings, were either “empty offices or addresses in China that could not be verified.”
During the examination, Zieba stated that the company claimed to be producing COVID-19 and pregnancy tests with the “goal of becoming a diagnostics lab.”