Senator Rand Paul released a new batch of documents related to the COVID‑19 pandemic, revealing that U.S. officials intercepted undeclared biological materials linked to a U.S.–China coronavirus research network as early as 2018.
The records include a Department of Homeland Security intelligence report that focuses on a network centered around University of Minnesota virologist Fang Li, whose laboratory receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Customs and Border Protection intercepted undeclared biological materials tied to this network in the years preceding the pandemic, indicating coordination between American and Chinese coronavirus researchers.
In April 2018, a scientist from the Wuhan Institute of Virology asked Li to arrange for a student to transport SARS antibodies from the United States back to China; Li declined, citing rising U.S.–China tensions and suggested an alternative scientist for the shipment.
In October of the same year, Qibin Geng, a student in Li’s lab, offered to send live porcine epidemic diarrhea virus and a growth protocol to a prominent American researcher, requesting the researcher’s shipping address for the live virus.
Geng held a degree from an institution affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army but did not disclose any military service or affiliation on his visa application.
In November 2018, Customs agents at Detroit Metropolitan Airport seized three concealed vials hidden in paper towels and wax film from a courier identified as Yusen Zhou of China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences.
The same courier was stopped again in June 2021 at Detroit airport while traveling out of China, this time carrying 132 vials and a laptop belonging to another individual; the vials likely contained a species of fly commonly used as a model organism in research.
The laptop, issued by a U.S. research institution, contained login credentials, raising additional security concerns.
As chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the senator has been publishing internal documents through a public archive, offering insight into early pandemic‑related investigations.
Earlier releases highlighted private doubts among authors of a key scientific paper on the virus’s origin and documented an FBI intervention that halted a planned border inspection of a virus researcher.
