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 pretend aliases and substitute books.
Jeffrey Ying of Fremont allegedly used three pretend names to take a look at the dear vintage manuscripts from UCLA in a doable five-year string of robberies, with among the stolen books courting again to the thirteenth century, in response to investigators.
Ying, arrested Wednesday earlier than an alleged try to flee to China, was charged by the U.S. lawyer’s workplace with theft of main paintings, a felony punishable by as much as 10 years in federal jail, and is predicted to seem in U.S. District Courtroom in Los Angeles within the coming days, the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in Los Angeles mentioned Thursday.
In response to 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 space for storing meant to deal with uncommon or delicate books. In response to his request, a field containing manuscripts can be transported to a reserved studying room on the Charles E. Younger Analysis Library of UCLA. Ying would evaluate and substitute the manuscripts along with his “dummies,” taking the originals with him as he left, in response to an FBI affidavit.
Library workers informed 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 a radical evaluate of the objects to make sure they weren’t changed with dummy manuscripts, in response to officers.
The director of UCLA Library Particular Collections acquired discover from the pinnacle 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 response to the FBI affidavit, safety digital camera evaluation from library workers revealed that Fujimori, Austin Chen, and Jason Wang, who had all checked out priceless manuscripts over time, have been all aliases for one individual— Ying.
By way of a journey file investigation, FBI officers mentioned they found that Ying traveled forwards and backwards 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 offered or traded any of the manuscripts. The FBI affidavit additionally lists each e-book 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 no less than 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 beneath the alias “Jason Wang.” On Aug. 5 of this 12 months, Ying requested eight extra books as “Austin Chen.” The following 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 choose 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, in addition they allege that in 2020, Ying, beneath the title Alan Fujimori, stole two UCLA manuscripts from the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries valued at a mixed $132,386.
His file may return even additional. The FBI affidavit mentions that the alias ‘Alan Fujimori’ is related to a identified e-book thief who was on the run after comparable thefts on the UC Berkeley library.
At his arrest, Ying was discovered with a card for Resort Angeleno, positioned three miles away from the UCLA library, in response to 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 Resort Angelino with a search warrant. They found clean manuscripts, printed tags, and fraudulent IDs that matched previous aliases.
Ying will not be but matched with an lawyer and stays in custody for threat of leaving the nation.
