A New Chapter in Foreign Espionage and Clandestine Biological Warfare against the United States: Hidden threats from Secret Chinese Biolabs and Agricultural Subterfuge
- IHS Sam Houston State Uni
- Mar 31
- 8 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
By: Dr. Arthur Simental
March 2026
Over the last two months several headlines have emerged that paint a sinister picture that should cause great concern across the United States. Over the last few weeks not one, not two, but three seemingly unrelated incidents involving secret Chinese-biolabs have been discovered in the United States, in addition to the reporting of numerous unsolicited packages of seeds being received across Texas that are suspected of introducing foreign invasive species or plant diseases from China. Individually, a single incident would seem suspicious, together they seem more nefarious and point to long-term biological warfare tactics that attempt to subvert the long-term viability of America’s public health and agricultural security. These tactics border on what can be described as “scorched-earth”.
These incidents have spanned multiple states and in regard to the agricultural security issue, over 1100 incidents have been reported in Texas alone in the last year. Per reporting by the Texas Department of Agriculture, “Since February 2025, Texas Department of Agriculture has collected seed deliveries at 109 locations across the Lone Star State, totaling 1,101 packs of unsolicited seeds. While small in appearance, these packages represent a serious and ongoing threat to the nation’s agricultural biosecurity. “At a glance, this might seem like a small problem, but this is serious business,” said Commissioner Miller. “The possible introduction of an invasive species to the state via these seeds poses real risks to Texas families and the agriculture industry. We need everyone to report these packages when they arrive so the contents may be gathered and disposed of properly.” TDA first became aware of the issue in early February when a resident in Clute, Texas, received an unsolicited package sent from China, containing unidentified seeds and an unknown liquid. In response, TDA immediately warned Texans to exercise extreme caution if they receive packages of unknown origin. Since that report, it has been discovered that the mystery seed resurgence was not limited to Texas. Similar examples surfaced across the country in 2025, including reports from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. The last unsolicited seed package collection in Texas was conducted on December 29, 2025” (TDA, 2026). This reporting paints a continued and sustained effort of incidents stemming from China with direct implications on U.S. soil. These incidents only represent a small series of what is publicly known and accounted for.
Furthermore, other even more brazen foreign intrusion incidents even include a secret Chinese police station operating within the U.S. borders in New York, “Chen Jinping, 60, of New York, New York, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to act as an illegal agent of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in connection with opening and operating an undeclared overseas police station, located in lower Manhattan, for the PRC’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS). “Today’s guilty plea holds the defendant accountable for his brazen efforts to operate an undeclared overseas police station on behalf of the PRC’s national police force — a clear affront to American sovereignty and danger to our community that will not be tolerated,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division” (DOJ, 2024). Interestingly, while the Trump Administration has acted swiftly intervene in the case of the secret Chinese police station, in the case of the Texas agriculture and biosecurity incident, little has been made known what is undoubtedly an incident in which the federal government has the primary responsibility to protect and defend America’s national sovereignty, biosecurity, public health and agricultural security but has made little disclosure on its actions to prevent and thwart further attempts.
Even more disturbing than the recent Chinese attacks on bio and agricultural security via seeds and operating a secret illegal police station, that there have been not one but two high profile incidents of actual biological weapons found in secret illegal Chinese labs operating in the United States in Las Vegas and California including some of the most feared pathogens including HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and Covid, a freezer labeled Ebola, and thousands of samples of labeled, unlabeled, and encoded potential pathogens (U.S. Congressman Kiley, 2026). This has prompted an investigation by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. “Congressman Kevin Kiley (R-CA) is urging Congress to take action on his legislation after the FBI investigated a home in Las Vegas for operating an illegal biological laboratory, which may be related to a Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked bio lab in Reedley, California” (U.S. Congressman Kiley, 2026). The second and most recent incident has prompted bipartisan legislation to strengthen U.S. public health from national security threats. Notably, these incidents garnered stronger responses from state and local governments but a continued failure from federal government agencies who are primarily responsible including the U.S. Public Health Service and CDC per notes from the report listed below.
“After the Reedley lab was discovered, Congressman Kiley requested an investigation. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party issued a report with the following findings:
The illegal biolab was run by a PRC citizen who is a wanted fugitive from Canada with a $330 million Canadian dollar judgment against him for stealing American intellectual property.
This PRC citizen was a top official at a PRC-state-controlled company and had links to military-civil fusion entities.
The illegal biolab received millions of dollars in unexplained payments from PRC banks while running the illegal biolab.
The illegal biolab contained thousands of samples of labeled, unlabeled, and encoded potential pathogens, including HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and Covid.
The illegal biolab also contained a freezer labeled “Ebola,” which contained unlabeled, sealed silver bags consistent with how the lab stored high-risk biological materials. Ebola is a Select Agent with a lethality rate between 25-90%.
The biolab contained nearly a thousand transgenic mice, genetically engineered to mimic the human immune system. Lab workers said that the mice were designed “to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus.”
After local officials who discovered the lab sought help from the CDC and others, the CDC refused to test any of the samples. (U.S. Congressman Kiley, 2026).
Most notably and disturbingly, is the fact that the USPHS and CDC’s unwillingness to directly engage and support a state and local response to two an illicit foreign biolabs, direct threats to national security in which the authority to intervene falls squarely to the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Public Health Service and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It should be noted that this function, protecting the nation’s public health security via primary federal law and authority for the existence of these agencies going back to the founding fathers of the United States and President John Adams. During the founding of the nation one of the greatest threats has been to the nation’s public health and the loss of goods, introduction of communicable and deadly diseases from foreign countries was recognized as a severe threat to the national security and sovereignty of the United States and as such some of America’s earliest laws established were to provide police powers and authorities to prevent such incidents. Because simply put disease meant death and loss of goods, which leads to loss of workforce, and human capital, which ultimately had grave impact on taxes from trade that the U.S. depends on.
Key 42 CFR Chapters & Subchapters Relevant to CDC/USPHS:
Part 71 - Foreign Quarantine: Regulations for managing communicable diseases, including health screenings for travelers and animals.
Part 70 - Interstate Quarantine: Regulations to prevent the spread of communicable diseases between states.
Part 80-88 - Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH): Covers NIOSH health hazard evaluations, respiratory device testing, and research.
Part 2 - Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records: Rules for confidentiality of records.
Part 73 - Select Agents and Toxins: Regulations for possession, use, and transfer of biological agents.
Key 42 CFR Subchapter F (Quarantine, Inspection, Licensing):
Part 70 & 71: CDC-managed, covering interstate and foreign quarantine, specifically for diseases like yellow fever, cholera, and others. (Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, 2026).
These regulations are enforced by the CDC and the USPHS Commissioned Corps, often under the authority of the Public Health Service Act. If the Trump Administration refuses to support states and enforce its constitutional duty and federal role to protect the U.S. national sovereignty and security than I openly pose the question if we are truly the “United States” of America anymore. The fact that the CDC stated to Congress in its investigation of these incidents that it did not have the authority to do anything is so brazenly false that the negligence of failing to understand the basic legal basis and authority for the existence of the agency that the spokesperson represented arguably amounts to no less than perjury which is a prosecutable, criminal offense.
International Law – Biological Weapons Convention 1972
Under the Geneva Convention and Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, bioweapons use are prohibited. Signatories of the 1972 bioweapons convention include “89 States Parties and four Signatory States” (U.N. ODA, n.d.). By definition, “Biological weapons disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants” and further “almost any disease-causing organism (such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, prions or rickettsiae) or toxin (poisons derived from animals, plants or microorganisms, or similar substances produced synthetically) can be used in biological weapons. The agents can be enhanced from their natural state to make them more suitable for mass production, storage, and dissemination as weapons. Historical biological weapons programs have included efforts to produce: aflatoxin; anthrax; botulinum toxin; foot-and-mouth disease; glanders; plague; Q fever; rice blast; ricin; Rocky Mountain spotted fever; smallpox; and tularemia, among others” (U.N. ODA, n.d.).
The ramifications of such weapons pose a great risk of the gravest threat possible. Not just to any one country, but to humanity itself. The risk of biological mutation is akin to playing with pandora’s box. Worse yet, humanity’s capability, i.e. the global public health security capability to develop effective countermeasures and scientific capacity to undertake these efforts can at best be described as highly specialized and scarce. Particularly in light of recent efforts to drastically cut federal funding by the Trump Administration, and funding for science, research, and public health in general. For example, vaccination efforts typically span decades of research. Even during COVID-19, experimental vaccination for COVID-19 from Operation Warp speed, an international effort across the globe took nearly a year before the first vaccines were ready and nearly two for a majority of the population to receive it. While COVID-19 was a direct impact on public health globally, bioweapons have long generated the kind of doomsday fear and warnings of biblical proportions that have been embedded in popular culture and science fiction alike.
There are scores of movies that tell these stories of human-initiated Armageddon. The foundation or basis for many of stories stem not from pure imagination… many come from actual history and are influenced by real-life events. Events from World War I, World War II which was a major testbed for many of these abominations were explored, to Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the Tokyo Subway Sarin Gas Attacks, and more…. Humanity has yet to fail in its ability to develop new ways to extinguish human life on one hand and has arguably been negligent in protecting it in the other. The ultimate question I pose to the reader here is that if the USPHS and CDC had confirmed a bioweapon such as Ebola which is classified as a WMD to have been found in both biolabs linked to China, shouldn’t that have triggered national security incident? Is this not an act of war? An incident so grievous that there should currently be an international showdown over a break in not only International Law and the Biological Weapons Convention 1972, but the Geneva Convention itself? Is this not arguably the most serious foreign attempted attack on U.S. soil since 9/11?
References:
Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. (2026). 42 U.S. Code Chapter 6A Subchapter II Part G - Quarantine and Inspection. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/chapter-6A/subchapter-II/part-G
Department of Justice. (2024). New York Resident Pleads Guilty to Operating Secret Police Station of the Chinese Government in Lower Manhattan. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/new-york-resident-pleads-guilty-operating-secret-police-station-chinese-government-lower
Texas Department of Agriculture. (2026). Commissioner Miller Warns Texas as China Mystery Seed Package Deliveries Continue. https://texasagriculture.gov/News-Events/Article/10730/Commissioner-Miller-Warns-Texas-as-China-Mystery-Seed-Package-Deliveries-Contin
United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. (n.d.). https://disarmament.unoda.org/en/our-work/weapons-mass-destruction/biological-weapons/biological-weapons-convention
U.S. Congressman Kevin Kiley. (2026). After Second Arrest Linked to Illegal Bio Labs, Rep. Kiley Urges Hearing on Bipartisan Public Health Bill. https://kiley.house.gov/posts/after-second-arrest-linked-to-illegal-bio-labs-rep-kiley-urges-hearing-on-bipartisan-public-health-bill
