Mr. Zhu was born in China in 1961 and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from the Beijing University Medical Department in 1984 and a master's degree from the Peking Union Medical College Hospital in 1988. He went on to conduct bio research at the University of British Columbia in Canada, according to Sina Finance.
In 1991, Mr. Zhu established IND Dairytech Ltd in Vancouver and became chairman of the board.
In the late 1990s, Mr. Zhu flew a dozen Holstein cattle (a breed known for high milk production) from Quebec to Beijing to enhance milk production in China, where it was in great need.
A decade later, Mr. Zhu's focus switched to breeding technologies. Rather than transporting cattle to China, IND Dairytech began sending Holstein semen and embryos in an effort to develop cattle herds.
Primarily serving customers in Canada, IND Dairytech was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2008, delisted in 2011, and acquired shortly afterward by IND Lifetech, another company controlled by Mr. Zhu.
The Chinese characters of "Ai De" are also in the upper left corner of IND Lifetech's logo.
Not long after IND Lifetech acquired IND Dairytech, it changed its name to JingJing Genetics, still based in Canada and controlled by Mr. Zhu.
In 2008, JingJing Genetics was sued by XY LLC, a Colorado-based company that claimed damages for "conspiracy, deceit, breach of confidence, breach of contract, and inducing breach of contract."
XY had developed the technology to "choose the sex of the offspring using sexed semen or sexed embryos" for "non-human mammals, including cattle, horses, pigs, and endangered species," according to an online statement.
The company was "the master licensee in control of all sperm sorting in non-human mammals worldwide."
JingJing Genetics was allegedly stealing XY’s technology to manufacture and sell bovine sexed semen, but without the strict controls required from a licensee.
The case was decided in 2012, with the judge ruling against JingJing Genetics for violating intellectual property agreements.
JingJing’s three principals at the time—Mr. Zhu, Selen Cui Feng Zhou, and Jin Tang—were found liable for "civil fraud and conspiracy to cause economic injury" and were ordered to pay CA$8.5 million (US$6.2 million) to XY, according to a statement at the time.
Canadian Judge Stephen Kelleher also issued JingJing and its principals a permanent injunction from using the so-called cytometer technology that analyzes and sorts cells for choosing the sex of the offspring.
However, days after the judge's ruling, XY received information that Mr. Zhu had set up a new company, Fraser Biomedical Inc., "for the purpose of secretly producing sexed semen using XY’s technology," according to a report by the Canadian Broadcast Network.
Judge Kelleher subsequently found Mr. Zhu in contempt for nonpayment of the CA$8.5 million and in 2015 sentenced him to jail for six months. But Mr. Zhu had fled Canada in 2014, and The Epoch Times was unable to find evidence that he has ever returned.
While ruling in another British Columbia Supreme Court case involving Mr. Zhu and his many companies, Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick said, "Zhu’s counsel indicated to me that Zhu is afraid of setting foot in this jurisdiction for fear that he will be arrested," according to court documents.
In that case, Judge Fitzpatrick ruled in 2016 that Mr. Zhu and his employees were to pay an additional CA$330 million (US$242 million) to XY for continued conspiracy to obtain intellectual property and confidential information.
"It is difficult to express the degree and scope of Zhu's wrongdoing in relation to his concerted plan and actions to steal XY’s Confidential Information for his own financial ends," Judge Fitzpatrick wrote in her ruling.
Court documents show transcripts from messenger app WeChat between Mr. Zhu and Mr. Xu from 2014. The messages reveal that Mr. Zhu’s goal was "total bankruptcy" for XY.
"If the new system is swiftly marketed, causing the overall sexed semen production cost to fall by twice as much, how do you think they are going to live from now on? ... So I propose using about 3 years in making [XY] collapse or be acquired cheaply," Mr. Zhu wrote in a text to Mr. Xu in May 2014.
"At the most opportune time, to acquire [XY] using the best price should be our basic strategy. Before that, we shall engage in attrition with them, drag them on as much as possible, drag them down, to let them feel all the time the sword of Damocles is on their heads. For this, we have already designed a comprehensive operational scheme."
An email exchange from April 2011 was also highlighted in the 2016 ruling.
In an email to Mr. Tang and Mr. Zhu, Mr. Xu wrote, “Well it seems American imperialism is very cunning, suggest to make an imitation one,” clearly referring to XY.
Mr. Zhu replied, "The law is strong, but the outlaws are ten times stronger."
In her ruling, Judge Fitzpatrick said: "The evidence makes clear that all of these defendants each played a part in the overall plan to steal XY’s confidential information for their own use by various means.
"This was all done for the benefit of the IND Group.
"As an overarching comment, it is difficult to express the degree and scope of Zhu’s wrongdoing in relation to his concerted plan and actions to steal XY’s confidential information."
In 2014, two years after the British Columbia Supreme Court ruling against JingJing Genetics, XY still hadn't received the CA$8.5 million in damages. In further pursuit of the damages, XY sued another company controlled by Mr. Zhu—this time in Hong Kong.
XY sought to access its damages from the defendant's frozen HSBC bank account connected to yet another company controlled by Mr. Zhu, Grand Network Technology Co. Ltd (GNT).
GNT was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands in 2000 and then registered as a private company in Hong Kong in 2014, according to court documents.
Peter Wang and another man were appointed as GNT's first directors and major shareholders, as they were also employed by companies within IND Group, the group of companies controlled by Mr. Zhu with operations in Canada and China. Peter Wang is Mr. Zhu's brother-in-law.
Although still marked as “active” in Hong Kong's company directory, GNT appears to be a shell company, as no website, services, or contacts are listed.
Mr. Zhu and GNT appealed the case in Hong Kong on two grounds: one was jurisdiction-related, and the other was that Mr. Zhu didn't own GNT.
The onus was put on XY to litigate that Mr. Zhu controlled GNT, which caused lengthy delays in the case.
During the trial, IND employees testified that they didn't know who their actual employer was and that they were moved around between companies without knowledge or consent while keeping the same roles. They only knew they had been transferred when they received their paycheck from another company.
They regarded all the various companies involved as one group—the IND Group—all owned and controlled by Mr. Zhu. Employee testimony revealed that Mr. Zhu instructed an accounting manager in the IND Group to transfer money out of IND LifeTech Group Ltd to GNT’s account to "avoid execution by XY."
According to testimony from James Yunjian Yang—a former IND office manager from 1999 to 2014—several offshoot companies operated in the United States.
Mr. Yang was involved in developing businesses in California, Australia, and Uruguay. Specifically, in Uruguay, where Mr. Yang set up IND Lifetech Uruguay, Mr. Zhu asked him to be a director of this new company.
Mr. Yang asked for a secondary position, as he didn't want to take full responsibility, according to his testimony. As a result, a consultant, Edward Richard, agreed to be a shareholder. Mr. Yang, despite owning 95 percent of the company on paper, said he always considered Mr. Zhu the owner.
A 2016 ruling in Hong Kong revealed that although Mr. Zhu had never been a shareholder or director of GNT, he ultimately controlled the company. The ruling dismissed GNT's appeal against freezing its bank account to pay XY.
"The evidence reinforces a good arguable case that although Jesse Zhu has never been a director or shareholder of GNT, he controlled or owned GNT," the court document states.
"Although the various companies appear to have been set up for different purposes, they were, from Mr. Zhu’s point of view, interchangeable as his wishes dictated."
GNT's jurisdiction appeal was decided earlier this year, on May 16. A Hong Kong justice ruling to dismiss GNT’s appeal in favor of XY, which was reported as a rare win for a foreign plaintiff with no operations or assets in Hong Kong.
A search on the Vlex legal intelligence platform for "Jessie Jia Bei Zhu" returns 27 legal cases—19 in Canada, seven in Hong Kong, and one in the United States (Wisconsin).
A search for "Universal Meditech Inc." returned 132 legal cases in 10 countries—116 in the United States—while "Prestige Biotech" returned 53 cases in four countries, of which 31 are in the United States.
The Epoch Times contacted Prestige Biotech, Universal Meditech, Jesse Zhu, and Wang Zhaoyan for this article, but received no response.
The Epoch Times reached out to XY and its parent company, Sexing Technologies, but didn't receive a response by press time.
Seriously hateful guys...not just thieves but worse :
Court documents show transcripts from messenger app WeChat between Mr. Zhu and Mr. Xu from 2014. The messages reveal that Mr. Zhu’s goal was “total bankruptcy” for XY.
“If the new system is swiftly marketed, causing the overall sexed semen production cost to fall by twice as much, how do you think they are going to live from now on? ... So I propose using about 3 years in making [XY] collapse or be acquired cheaply,” Mr. Zhu wrote in a text to Mr. Xu in May 2014.