Before the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. authorities intercepted undeclared coronavirus material allegedly sent by a Chinese military scientist tied to the Wuhan research network and later linked to Canada’s Winnipeg lab scandal.
Newly released U.S. Department of Homeland Security records, made public by Sen. Rand Paul, show border officers at Detroit Metropolitan Airport seized three undeclared biological vials in November 2018.
According to the records, a courier said the material had been sent by Yusen Zhou of China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences to University of Minnesota virologist Fang Li, as first reported by The Bureau.
The discovery was serious enough that the shipment was turned over to the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate because it “may pose a risk to the national security of the United States.”
And the timing raises more questions.
Just weeks earlier, on Oct. 12, 2018, security guards at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory stopped a Wuhan Institute of Virology technician attempting to leave the Winnipeg Level-4 facility with 10 unidentified vials from the laboratory of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu.
Canadian intelligence would later conclude Qiu secretly transferred scientific knowledge and materials to Chinese state and military institutions while working at Canada’s highest-security laboratory.
