LAS VEGAS — Police in Las Vegas have found what they called an illegal biological lab in a home.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI are investigating the discovery.
They had received a tip and obtained a search warrant for the home, The Associated Press reported.
Employees of the property manager said they became “deathly ill” after entering a garage at the home, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“Approximately five (5) days after entering the garage, she was left with breathing issues, fatigue, ‘could not get out of bed’, and muscle aches,” a house cleaner told officials. Another employee told a similar story, the newspaper reported.
Police said the home was being used as a short-term rental and that others had gotten sick.
Police, using the pseudonym Kelly for the tipster, wrote in their report that “Kelly, said a lot of people who have lived inside the house have gotten sick,” the Review-Journal reported.
Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said they found “evidence of possible biological material, including refrigerators with vials containing unknown liquids,” KTNV reported.
The apparent lab was found mostly inside a locked garage at the home.
They found a bio-safety hood, bio-safety sticker, centrifuge, refrigerators, a red-brown liquid stored in gallon-sized containers along with the vials of unknown liquids, the FBI said.
The home also used more electricity than other homes, suggesting “a residence being utilized for the purpose of illegally producing narcotics or other illicit high energy demand operations,” the Review-Journal reported.
Police said 1,000 samples were taken from the property and were safely stored at the Southern Nevada Health District laboratory. They were then flown to the National Bioforensic Analysis Center in Maryland for testing, KTNV reported.
While officials said they do not know what the vials contained, they said that there were no safety concerns for those living in the home or the neighborhood, according to KTNV.
The home is owned by Jai Bei Zhu, who was accused of operating an alleged illegal biological lab in California.
Zhu was arrested in 2023 and was accused of not obtaining the proper permits to make COVID-19, pregnancy and HIV tests and mislabeling some of the tests, the AP reported.
He has been in federal custody for three years, his attorney said and was scheduled to go on trial in April.
Attorney Anthony Capozzi said of the Las Vegas case that his client "is not involved in any kind of a biolab being conducted in a home in Las Vegas. What went on in that residence, we are unaware of.”
The home’s property manager, Ori Solomon, was arrested and was facing charges that he used the home as storage for a cache of firearms, ABC News reported. Law enforcement said that when they executed the search warrant for the lab, they found bullets on a computer stand and a gun in a nearby cabinet. Since the initial warrant did not cover guns, they had to leave them there, but when he spoke to his daughter on Sunday, he allegedly asked about the weapons.
“Is there any guns left? Is there any guns left in the house or did they confiscate it?” he asked, according to the complaint. A female voice responded, “the three rifles, I think they found the lockbox with the pistol, but they couldn’t open it,” according to the complaint.
Federal authorities were able to get a warrant for the guns and went back, seizing them on Monday.
The complaint said they found “numerous firearms, ammunition, and firearm accessories,” ABC News reported.
Because Solomon, who also goes by the last name of Salomon, is in the U.S. on a temporary work visa, he is prohibited from having firearms, officials said. He is charged with violation of a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.
He is also charged with improperly disposing of hazardous waste, a felony, in Nevada, KNTV reported.
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