A Bay Space man has been charged with stealing uncommon Chinese language manuscripts valued at $216,000 from the UCLA library in an alleged scheme involving faux aliases and alternative books.
Jeffrey Ying of Fremont allegedly used three faux names to take a look at the precious vintage manuscripts from UCLA in a attainable five-year string of robberies, with a number of the stolen books relationship again to the thirteenth century, in line with investigators.
Ying, arrested Wednesday earlier than an alleged try to flee to China, was charged by the U.S. legal professional’s workplace with theft of main art work, a felony punishable by as much as 10 years in federal jail, and is anticipated to seem in U.S. District Courtroom in Los Angeles within the coming days, the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Los Angeles mentioned Thursday.
In keeping with an FBI affidavit, 38-year-old Ying rented manuscripts in teams, abusing a lately new system at UCLA that allowed customers to request library playing cards and lease books with out exhibiting an official ID. He would then return “dummy books” in place of the particular manuscripts.
The “dummy books” have been usually clean or low-value manuscripts with computer-paper-printed labels and asset tags to imitate these of the particular books.
Since 2020, Ying allegedly requested books from the Southern Regional Library Facility (SRL), a distant UCLA library cupboard space meant to deal with uncommon or delicate books. In response to his request, a field containing manuscripts could be transported to a reserved studying room on the Charles E. Younger Analysis Library of UCLA. Ying would evaluation and exchange the manuscripts together with his “dummies,” taking the originals with him as he left, in line with an FBI affidavit.
Library employees advised The Instances that the official coverage is to have an attendant current within the studying room always as somebody reads particular collections books.
When the fabric was returned to the library, the college had no coverage requiring an intensive evaluation of the gadgets to make sure they weren’t changed with dummy manuscripts, in line with officers.
The director of UCLA Library Particular Collections obtained discover from the top of the college’s East Asian Library that three uncommon Chinese language books have been lacking after being final checked out by somebody named “Alan Fujimori.”
In keeping with the FBI affidavit, safety digicam evaluation from library employees revealed that Fujimori, Austin Chen, and Jason Wang, who had all checked out helpful manuscripts over time, have been all aliases for one particular person— Ying.
By a journey report investigation, FBI officers mentioned they found that Ying traveled backwards and forwards from China inside a number of days of the alleged robberies, presumably to promote or transport the books.
Nevertheless, as of but, the FBI mentioned it has not confirmed whether or not Ying bought or traded any of the manuscripts. The FBI affidavit additionally lists each guide stolen by Ying as “by no means returned,” which can imply that authorities haven’t discovered them.
Whereas the official variety of stolen books is unconfirmed, affidavit testimony suggests at the least 10 are lacking, every valued between $274 to $70,000.
Over the course of October to December of final 12 months, federal investigation detailed within the FBI affidavit discovered that Ying checked out six books below the alias “Jason Wang.” On Aug. 5 of this 12 months, Ying requested eight extra books as “Austin Chen.” The subsequent day, Ying deliberate to board a beforehand booked flight to China. UCLA police have been already tipped off of suspicious habits — by the point Ying arrived to select up his eight books earlier than his flight, authorities have been known as and promptly arrested him.
Whereas the arrest and affidavit information primarily centered on the robberies of the previous 12 months, additionally they allege that in 2020, Ying, below the identify Alan Fujimori, stole two UCLA manuscripts from the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries valued at a mixed $132,386.
His report might return even additional. The FBI affidavit mentions that the alias ‘Alan Fujimori’ is related to a identified guide thief who was on the run after comparable thefts on the UC Berkeley library.
At his arrest, Ying was discovered with a card for Lodge Angeleno, situated three miles away from the UCLA library, in line with FBI and UCLA police’s investigation detailed within the affidavit. The doc additionally detailed that later within the day of the arrest, officers and detectives searched Ying’s room at Lodge Angelino with a search warrant. They found clean manuscripts, printed tags, and fraudulent IDs that matched previous aliases.
Ying shouldn’t be but matched with an legal professional and stays in custody for threat of leaving the nation.
