California Man Sentenced for Stealing $200K+ Chinese Manuscripts from UCLA

On July 8, a judge handed down a sentence to 39-year-old Jeffrey Ying, which included time served, a year of home confinement, and three years of supervised release for the theft of historic Chinese manuscripts worth over $200,000 from UCLA's library. Ying had pleaded guilty in October 2025 to major art theft involving a 17th-century manuscript from the Qing Dynasty and confessed to stealing additional texts. Under various aliases such as Alan Fujimori and Jason Wang, he borrowed manuscripts from the rare books section, substituting them with fake copies. The scheme was uncovered when library personnel noticed the missing items and recognized him through security footage. Ying was apprehended in August 2025, a day before his scheduled flight to China. Investigators discovered blank pages linked to the stolen materials, along with fake IDs and asset tags. The stolen items, which include poetry, prose, ink rubbings, and woodblock prints, were characterized by UCLA librarian Athena Jackson as 'rare and unique books, more akin to cultural heritage objects.' It remains uncertain whether the texts have been recovered or what Ying did with them, and there may be connections to similar thefts at UC Berkeley.