A Chinese scientist was caught under extremely suspicious circumstances at Detroit Metro Airport transporting vials believed to contain the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) viruses into the U.S, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation report.
The scientist was intercepted exactly a year before the first COVID-19 coronavirus case was identified in Wuhan, China, the document authored by the Chemical and Biological Intelligence Unit of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate said.
SARS and MERS are both coronaviruses, like the COVID-19 virus that has spread throughout the world and caused a pandemic.
The vials were labeled “Antibodies” and the unnamed scientist said he was asked to deliver them to a researcher at a U.S. institute.
“Inspection of the writing on the vials and the stated recipient led inspection personnel to believe the materials contained within the vials may be viable Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) materials,” Yahoo News quoted it as saying.
The report was part of a larger FBI concern about China’s involvement with scientific research in the U.S.
The FBI has stepped up its efforts to combat Chinese espionage operations in recent months after admitting failures in preventing the recruitment of U.S. researchers by Beijing’s Thousand Talents Plan.
The Thousand Talents Plan is a program established by China’s government in 2008 for recruiting and funding high-level scientists and talents from around the world who are willing to relocate to China to conduct research in high-tech industries or in new scientific fields.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 70: Jamarlin Martin
Jamarlin goes solo to discuss the COVID-19 crisis. He talks about the failed leadership of Trump, Andrew Cuomo, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and New York Mayor de Blasio.
“With our present-day knowledge of the threat from Chinese plans, we wish we had taken more rapid and comprehensive action in the past,” John Brown, assistant director of the counterintelligence division at the FBI, told a Senate subcommittee in November.
“The time to make up for that is now.”
