Back in 2015, Jesse Jia-Bei Zhu departed from British Columbia with legal issues, including a six-month jail term and a significant B.C. Supreme Court ruling related to his failed ambitions in the bull semen industry. Fast forward almost ten years, and Zhu’s name has resurfaced in the U.S. in connection with peculiar allegations involving biolabs in California and Nevada containing potentially hazardous substances.
Zhu faced scrutiny after authorities discovered a suspected lab in a Las Vegas residence he proposed living in while awaiting trial for distributing unreliable COVID-19 tests across the U.S. However, his application for release was denied, and he remains in pre-trial detention since his arrest in 2023 following the finding of another lab in Fresno County, Calif., stocked with test mice and vials containing substances like HIV and tuberculosis.
Zhu, a dual Chinese and Canadian citizen, lost the release request and continues to resist collection efforts by XY LLC, a corporate giant pursuing over $270 million in B.C. Supreme Court judgments for stealing bull sexing technology.
The legal battles shed light on the challenges Zhu faces today. “The law is strong,” Zhu once remarked in an email cited in a ruling against him, adding, “But the outlaws are ten times stronger.”
‘Defeat the American aggressor’
Court documents reviewed by CBC News from both Canadian and U.S. courts illuminate the intricate journey that brought Zhu into the spotlight in both countries. The Canadian proceedings also raised concerns about companies linked to Zhu receiving government grants in questionable ways, potentially defrauding the Canadian government through investment tied to immigration.
As per U.S. court records, Zhu relocated to Canada from China in 1988, residing in B.C. and frequently traveling to the U.S. before permanently leaving Canada in 2015 — his final border crossing recorded in Los Angeles. Around the same time, Zhu’s lawyer expressed his client’s fear of returning to Canada due to a civil contempt sentence related to the XY LLC lawsuit.
Following a hefty $8.5 million ruling against Zhu for utilizing XY LLC’s confidential technology, he allegedly set up a new entity secretly producing sexed semen using XY’s technology, aiming to sell it in China. Zhu’s WeChat conversations revealed his intent to undermine XY, with dramatic statements like wanting to “defeat the American aggressor and wild ambitious wolf!”
Instead, Zhu faced another substantial ruling against him, amounting to $270 million in damages, before he vanished.
An alarming discovery
A report from the U.S. Congress Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party unveiled Zhu’s next appearance when a law enforcement officer in Reedley, Calif., stumbled upon a suspicious warehouse setup linked to Zhu, now operating under the alias David He. The facility contained numerous vials of unlabeled or foreign language-labeled substances, raising concerns of potential pathogen trafficking.
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