A federal jury in Fresno, California, convicted Jia Bei Zhu, a 64-year-old Chinese national, of running a scheme that sold more than a million Covid tests nationwide for nearly $4 million while falsely marketing them as FDA-authorized.
The verdict, reached after a two-week trial, found Zhu guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of substantive wire fraud, two counts of distributing adulterated and misbranded medical devices and one count of making a false statement to the FDA. Prosecutors said the sales ran through his company, Universal Meditech Inc., and that employees testified Zhu told them to make false representations to customers. Victims testified the tests they received were missing basic parts and could not detect COVID.
The scheme came to light in 2022 after a victim filed a civil lawsuit against Universal Meditech and won a court-ordered inspection of the company’s Fresno facility. Investigators found the site could not manufacture COVID tests and described it as an unsanitary warehouse that fell below quality standards for facilities housing medical devices. They also found a vivarium not sealed off from the rest of the building and multiple refrigerators holding pathogens and toxins in juice, soda and other inappropriate containers.
Federal investigators later determined the vivarium and refrigerators were part of a failed effort by Universal Meditech to manufacture COVID tests at the Fresno site. Prosecutors said Zhu moved the company from Fresno to Reedley and changed its name to Prestige Biotech Inc. after the civil lawsuit was filed. Zhu met with FDA and CDC investigators in May 2023 and falsely claimed details about his identity and role with the company, according to prosecutors.
The case is tied to operations uncovered at the Reedley laboratory, where the federal review also concluded that the stored pathogens and toxins did not pose any risk to humans. That finding sits alongside the jury’s fraud verdict: the company’s problems were not a matter of sloppy recordkeeping or a paperwork dispute, but a deliberate effort to sell medical devices that could not do what they promised.
U.S. Attorney Eric Grant said the verdict holds Zhu accountable for exploiting a public health crisis, flouting FDA authority and deceiving the public by repackaging low-quality, foreign-made test kits when accuracy and reliability mattered most. FDA official Robert Iwanicki said the scheme to distribute medical devices that were misbranded and falsely represented as FDA-approved undermined public health during a critical time. Zhaoyan Wang is also charged in the case, but fled the United States shortly before Zhu’s arrest and remains a fugitive from justice in China.
