Bay Area man used aliases and ‘dummy books’ to steal rare Chinese manuscripts from UCLA, feds say

A Bay Area man has been charged with stealing rare Chinese manuscripts valued at $216,000 from the UCLA library in an alleged scheme involving fake aliases and replacement books.

Jeffrey Ying of Fremont allegedly used three fake names to check out the valuable antique manuscripts from UCLA in a possible five-year string of robberies, with some of the stolen books dating back to the 13th century, according to investigators.

Ying, arrested Wednesday before an alleged attempt to flee to China, was charged by the U.S. attorney’s office with theft of major artwork, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison, and is expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in the coming days, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said Thursday.

According to an FBI affidavit, 38-year-old Ying rented manuscripts in groups, abusing a recently new system at UCLA that allowed users to request library cards and rent books without showing an official ID. He would then return “dummy books” in place of the actual manuscripts.

The “dummy books” were often blank or low-value manuscripts with computer-paper-printed labels and asset tags to mimic those of the actual books.

Since 2020, Ying allegedly requested books from the Southern Regional Library Facility (SRL), a remote UCLA library storage space meant to house rare or delicate books. In response to his request, a box containing manuscripts would be transported to a reserved reading room at the Charles E. Young Research Library of UCLA. Ying would review and replace the manuscripts with his “dummies,” taking the originals with him as he left, according to an FBI affidavit.

Library staff told The Times that the official policy is to have an attendant present in the reading room at all times as someone reads special collections books.

When the material was returned to the library, the university had no policy requiring a thorough review of the items to ensure they were not replaced with dummy manuscripts, according to officials.

The director of UCLA Library Special Collections received notice from the head of the university’s East Asian Library that three rare Chinese books were missing after being last checked out by someone named “Alan Fujimori.”

According to the FBI affidavit, security camera analysis from library staff revealed that Fujimori, Austin Chen, and Jason Wang, who had all checked out valuable manuscripts over the years, were all aliases for one person— Ying.

Through a travel record investigation, FBI officials said they discovered that Ying traveled back and forth from China within several days of the alleged robberies, presumably to sell or transport the books.

However, as of yet, the FBI said it has not confirmed whether Ying sold or traded any of the manuscripts. The FBI affidavit also lists every book stolen by Ying as “never returned,” which may mean that authorities have not found them.

While the official number of stolen books is unconfirmed, affidavit testimony suggests at least 10 are missing, each valued between $274 to $70,000.

Over the course of October to December of last year, federal investigation detailed in the FBI affidavit found that Ying checked out six books under the alias “Jason Wang.” On Aug. 5 of this year, Ying requested eight more books as “Austin Chen.” The next day, Ying planned to board a previously booked flight to China. UCLA police were already tipped off of suspicious behavior — by the time Ying arrived to pick up his eight books before his flight, authorities were called and promptly arrested him.

While the arrest and affidavit records primarily focused on the robberies of the past year, they also allege that in 2020, Ying, under the name Alan Fujimori, stole two UCLA manuscripts from the 13th and 16th centuries valued at a combined $132,386.

His record could go back even further. The FBI affidavit mentions that the alias ‘Alan Fujimori’ is associated with a known book thief who was on the run after similar thefts at the UC Berkeley library.

At his arrest, Ying was found with a card for Hotel Angeleno, located three miles away from the UCLA library, according to FBI and UCLA police’s investigation detailed in the affidavit. The document also detailed that later in the day of the arrest, officers and detectives searched Ying’s room at Hotel Angelino with a search warrant. They discovered blank manuscripts, printed tags, and fraudulent IDs that matched past aliases.

Ying is not yet matched with an attorney and remains in custody for risk of leaving the country.