A Chinese couple working at Canada’s top biosafety laboratory was secretly sending information to Beijing and mailing live Ebola to China, an explosive investigation has found.
In a 600-page report released this week by the Canadian intelligence service, the couple was also accused of allowing visitors into the laboratory who tried to leave with plastic bags containing vials containing an unknown substance.
Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and Dr. Keding Cheng were found to have left visitors with ties to the Chinese government and military unsupervised at the facilities.
The report also accused the pair of being in communication with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the facility at the center of the Covid lab leak theory, without informing their superiors.
Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where they worked as researchers, is the only BSL4 laboratory in the country, and the only one that is home to Ebola, as well as other deadly viruses such as Marburg and Lassa fever.
It has now been ordered to beef up its security over the leak, and universities have been told their funding could be cut if they are found to be collaborating with foreign institutions, such as those in China.
The Chinese couple had worked at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (pictured) in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is the only BSL4 laboratory in the country and is authorized to handle dangerous pathogens, including Ebola and Marburg viruses.
The couple, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu (left) and Dr. Kending Cheng (right), are pictured above. Both are now believed to be in China.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Canadian government has fought for years to keep the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) investigation secret, according to media reports.
CSIS initially published a heavily redacted version of the investigation in 2021, but this sparked outrage from the conservative opposition and accusations of a cover-up.
This week they were forced to publish the documents after a national security review by a special parliamentary committee and a panel of three retired senior judges.
The review stated that the couple had been able to use the laboratory. as a “foundation to help China improve its ability to fight highly pathogenic pathogens… and achieve brilliant results.”
Chinese-born Dr. Qiu was a “star” at the internationally renowned lab for her work developing an antibody treatment for Ebola, which was used in the 2014 outbreak in Africa.
But in July 2019, she and her husband were escorted out of the laboratory and then fired from their duties in January 2021 without official explanation.
The photo above shows Dr. Qiu working in the lab. Researchers said she had sent Ebola’s genetic code to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
Dr. Qiu, shown working at the lab, was also found to have lied to officials about a vacation she took to China in 2018 and appeared on two Chinese patents without the lab’s knowledge.
In the just-released 2020 assessment, CSIS warned: ‘Dr. Qiu represents a very serious and credible danger to the government of Canada as a whole.
“And particularly at facilities considered high security due to the potential for theft of hazardous materials attractive to terrorists and foreign entities conducting espionage to infiltrate and harm Canada’s economic security.”
The assessment adds: ‘The service assesses that Ms Qiu developed deep cooperative relationships with a range of institutions in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
“(She has also) intentionally transferred scientific knowledge and materials to China to benefit the government of the People’s Republic of China and herself, without regard to the implications… for Canada’s interests.”
Listing violations committed by Dr. Qiu, officials said she had provided Beijing with “the genetic sequence of Ebola, which opened a door of convenience for China.”
She was also accused of shipping live Ebola virus to WIV, including documents in her report showing the shipment was sent.
She was also accused of sending Henipavirus to WIV in the shipment of 30 vials in total.
Additionally, they allege that she had been hired to work for the WIV on a trip to China in 2018, which she claims was for “personal reasons.”
And Dr. Qiu was found to have brought two restricted visitors to the lab, including a research assistant from the Beijing Academy of Military Sciences and a woman who had a Chinese public affairs passport reserved for public officials.
The report also claims that Dr. Qiu was an applicant for Beijing’s Thousand Talents Program, which was created to pay students to participate in research to advance Chinese interests.
And he alleges that he was negotiating a work agreement with Hebei Medical University in Shijiazhuang, China, between 2018 and 2022. The unfinalized agreement would have involved payment of the equivalent of $1.2 million to support his work.
The agency also claimed that she and her husband had an undisclosed bank account at China Commercial Bank and that she had applied to be part of a program at China’s WIV. As part of this, she had committed to “building the People’s Republic of China’s biosafety platform for new and powerful infectious disease research.”
Concerns about Dr. Qiu first arose in September 2018, when her name appeared on a patent filed in China for an Ebola treatment, research the lab had not been informed of.
The source of the tip has not been revealed.
Suspicions then arose about Dr. Cheng in October after it was discovered that he had invited students into the laboratory who tried to leave carrying two clear plastic bags containing vials of an unknown substance.
Later that same month, Dr. Cheng was also caught trying to leave the laboratory with two empty Styrofoam containers, which BSL-4 laboratories use to transport materials, including viruses.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), concerned by the reports, launched an investigation into the couple in December 2018, which revealed numerous allegations of security failures to the pair, including that they had repeatedly allowed restricted visitors to download experimental data from the lab and send it to their email accounts.
PHAC also alleged that in May 2018, Dr. Cheng had been sent vials containing mouse protein in a package shipped from China labeled “kitchen utensils.”
Dr. Qiu was accused of having shipped Ebola antibodies out of the laboratory for at least two years to countries including China, the United States and the United Kingdom.
She was also accused of appearing on a second patent in China related to a treatment for the Marburg virus.
Alarmed by their findings, the investigation was turned over to CSIS just before July 2019, which launched its own security investigation and interviewed the couple.
Health Minister Mark Holland said China’s influence on Canada’s scientific community was “not known to the extent it is known today” following the release of the files.
‘These were eminent scientists whose research and work was well known. “They were leaders in their field, some of the most brilliant scientists known,” he said.
“I think there was a dawning understanding of the extent to which foreign actors in the most direct sense – in this case we’re talking about China, in other cases Russia and other foreign entities, foreign governments – were trying to influence Canada.”
The couple have not been able to be contacted and numerous media reports have suggested they have moved to China.