New evidence supports the Covid lab-leak theory with ’80 to 95 percent certainty,’ intelligence out of Germany claims.
The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) carried out a secret investigation into the origins of Covid nicknamed Project Saaremaa during the pandemic, the findings of which were only shared with the US in December 2024.
German agents targeted Chinese government agencies and scientific institutions across the country, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology – the lab at the center of the lab-leak theory.
In Wuhan, the BND agents ‘struck gold,’ coming ‘as close to the origins of the pandemic… as possible in China,’ German media Die Zeit reported.
They found unpublished dissertations from 2019 and 2020 that allegedly discussed the effects of coronaviruses on the human body.
Additionally, uncovered materials revealed Chinese scientists had ‘an unusually large amount of knowledge about the supposedly novel virus available at an unusually early stage.’
Based on the materials BND agents found and analyzed, they used a ‘Probability Index’ to measure the reliability of information, which determined the lab-leak theory was ‘probable’ with an ’80 to 95 percent’ certainty.
Perhaps more alarming, the agents also found Chinese scientists are still carrying out dangerous manipulation experiments with the deadly coronavirus MERS.
Chinese researcher Shi Zhengli, known as ‘bat woman’ for her work on coronaviruses in bats, is pictured in her lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2019
Findings from Project Saaremaa were revealed by German media outlet Die Zeit, which along with Süddeutsche Zeitung, conducted an 18-month investigation into the project.
Investigators also found biosecurity measures at WIV were lacking.
Virus-infected animal samples were transported between labs carelessly, raising the risk that pathogens could escape the lab.
While the investigators were almost positive Covid came from a lab, Die Zeit reported BND does not have definitive proof.
The Chinese government has always denied the lab-leak theory and maintained Covid was the product of an animal spillover.
America’s US intelligence agencies, the FBI and CIA, say a lab leak is most likely.
People involved in Saaremaa told the German media outlets they took their findings to German officials in 2020, including the Federal Chancellery and the state secretary responsible for intelligence services.
A federal chancellery secretary was also briefed, the agents claimed, and then Chancellor Angela Merkel was also reportedly made aware, according to Die Zeit.
When asked to confirm if she was informed, Merkel declined to answer, Die Zeit reported.
People involved in Project Saaremaa told the media outlets the German government took no action and the World Health Organization was never informed: ‘The BND was sworn to secrecy.’
Dr Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, told DailyMail.com: ‘The main points are clear: All informed persons – without exception – knew by early 2020 that SARS-CoV-2 likely entered humans through a research-related incident in Wuhan.
‘But most chose to lie or to stay silent.
‘It is now clear that this not only included the scientific establishment… but also the intelligence agencies of the US and Germany, which withheld information from the public and policy makers.’
The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China is the lab at the center of the Covid lab-leak theory
It wasn’t until December 2024, five years after the first cases appeared in China, that the BND was able to share its findings with US intelligence agencies, people involved in the project said.
German and US officials have reportedly spoken about the matter on three occasions: December 2024 and January and February 2025.
The BND also allegedly discussed its findings with the CIA in late 2024 and believe they ‘will soon be known to the Trump administration as well,’ Die Zeit reported.
In addition to information discovered five years ago, BND uncovered new evidence the Chinese are currently ‘overstepping boundaries.’
According to the investigation, Chinese researchers are allegedly testing the transmission of MERS coronaviruses and related viruses in human cells.
MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, is a contagious respiratory illness spread from animals to humans and from human to human. It causes fever, cough, shortness of breath, diarrhea and vomiting, and can be fatal in severe cases.
A new virus closely related to MERS, which kills up to a third of people it infects, was recently discovered in China.
In scenes eerily reminiscent of the beginnings of Covid, researchers at the WIV detected the new strain, HKU5-CoV-2, living within bats.
HKU5-CoV-2 is strikingly similar to the pandemic virus, sparking fears that history could repeat itself just two years after the worst was declared over.
Preliminary tests showed HKU5-CoV-2 infiltrated human cells in the same way as SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid.
Sharing their discovery in the journal Cell, the Beijing-funded researchers admitted it posed a ‘high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts.’
