On 8 July 2026, Jeffrey Ying, a resident of Fremont, California, was sentenced in federal court after confessing to the theft of approximately $216,000 worth of rare and historical Chinese manuscripts from the Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library at the University of California, Los Angeles.  Some of the stolen literature dating to as early as 1393, while another was published in 1575. 

Jeffrey Ying pleaded guilty in October 2025 to just one felony count of theft of a major artwork, for the December 2024 theft of a 17th Century manuscript dating from China's Qing dynasty (1644-1911).  Court documents indicate that the manuscript thief carried out a series of thefts which began prior to 2020 Pandemic and continued up to the time of his arrest after Ying returned again to the UCLA, in August 2025, after the missing manuscripts were detected.  According to the wider investigation, he is alleged to have removed at least eight rare Chinese books or manuscripts. 

According to investigators, using assumed names like “Jason Wang,” “Alan Fujimori,” and “Austin Chen” Ying would borrow the rare documents for a few days at a time, create copies, and then affix fake asset tags before returning the counterfeit or “dummy” manuscripts in place of the authentic originals.  Afterward, within days of the thefts, he regularly travelled to and from China. 

His sentence this week, as corrected in reporting following an amended Justice Department release, includes credit for time served, one year of home confinement, three years of supervised release, no fine, and restitution to be determined at a later date.

Library staff eventually noticed the counterfeit manuscripts and ultimately traced their last known access to a visitor using the name “Alan Fujimori.”  Law enforcement then searched Ying’s hotel room in Brentwood, where they found blank manuscripts and paperwork made in the style of the manuscripts he had checked out, as well as pre-made asset tags that could be used to help disguise substitute volumes, making them appear to be legitimate library holdings.  When arrested, authorities also found that Ying held a fraudulent California identification card in the name “Austin Chen” and library cards bearing the names “Austin Chen” and “Jason Wang.”

For special collections, rare books, and manuscript libraries, the Ying case is a reminder that access control alone is not enough.  Institutions must pair reader registration and supervised handling with item-level photography, condition checks, return inspections, staff training, and procedures for comparing returned material against existing documentation.  Asset tags, shelf marks, bindings, wrappers, paper, calligraphy, seals, annotations, and other identifying features need to be checked as part of a return workflow, especially when materials are valuable, portable, and vulnerable to substitution.

This is not a glamorous art theft story. It is a procedural one. Its significance lies in how ordinary library processes can be exploited through aliases, reservations, dummy copies, and the appearance of normal return.  For archives and libraries stewarding cultural heritage, the case shows why documentation, chain of custody, reading-room controls, and careful return verification are not administrative burdens.  They are core protections against cultural property crime.