A man from the San Francisco Bay Area has been charged with allegedly stealing rare and historical Chinese manuscripts valued at about $216,000 from the library system of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California on Aug. 7 announced that Jeffrey Ying, 38, of Fremont, had been arrested recently. Ying is charged with theft of a major artwork, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Ying’s alleged scheme, as detailed in an affidavit filed with a criminal complaint, lasted from December 2024 to July this year.
He allegedly checked out rare manuscripts from the university’s library, took them home for several days, and returned counterfeit or “dummy” copies in place of the original books, according to prosecutors. The defendant also allegedly affixed the dummy versions with fake library asset tags….