A secret biological laboratory found in a suburban Las Vegas home, apparently linked to a similar unauthorized facility in California, has alarmed officials, who warn that the United States may be dangerously unprepared for hidden bioterrorist threats.On January 31, police in Las Vegas raided a five-bedroom home in a quiet residential area after several people living there became “fatally ill”, according to the Daily Mail. Authorities found unidentified liquids and laboratory-style equipment in several refrigerators, bottles and jugs inside a garage that had been converted into a makeshift biolab. More than 1,000 samples were sent to the National Center for Bioforensic Analysis for testing, as officials continue to investigate what substances were present.The property manager, Ori Solomon, 55, was arrested after police found a cache of weapons in the home. He has been charged with disposal and discharge of hazardous waste and, due to his visa status, with being a prohibited person from possessing a firearm. His lawyer says that Solomon was not associated with the lab.The Las Vegas discovery is directly related to a much larger investigation in Reedley, California, where an illegal biolab was uncovered in late 2022 and investigated in 2023. Local authorities found thousands of vials containing labeled biological substances including malaria, HIV, COVID‑19 and Ebola, as well as approximately 1,000 laboratory rats that had been used for testing.The Reedley facility was linked to Jia Bei Zhu, a Chinese national who faces federal charges in connection with the California lab and an unrelated scheme to sell unapproved medical tests. Court documents revealed that Zhu had received large, unexplained payments from Chinese banks while running the covert operation. He entered the United States under an alias in 2015 after fleeing Canada, where he was fined for theft of American intellectual property.Phone records indicate Zhu, who is still in custody, called the Las Vegas property nearly 400 times last year, though his lawyer says he was unaware of illegal activity at that location.To date, there is no direct evidence that the substances found in any of the laboratories were being used to develop biological weapons. The FBI has said that many of the materials recovered from the Las Vegas property appear to be linked to the manufacturing of COVID and pregnancy testing kits, as well as influenza vaccines, but some samples could not be tested because they were spoiled. So the FBI ended its investigation.