{"id":392643,"date":"2026-07-09T22:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392643\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T22:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:54:09","slug":"california-man-steals-historic-chinese-manuscripts-from-ucla-using-fake-names-dummy-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392643\/","title":{"rendered":"California man steals historic Chinese manuscripts from UCLA, using fake names, dummy documents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Northern California man was sentenced Wednesday to a year in federal prison for stealing historical Chinese manuscripts from the UCLA library, according to authorities. <\/p>\n<p>Jeffrey Ying, 39, also known as \u201cJason Wang,\u201d \u201cAlan Fujimori\u201d and \u201cAustin Chen\u201d of Fremont, pleaded guilty in October 2025 to one count of theft of major artwork, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in the Central District of California.<\/p>\n<p>Ying said during a guilty plea hearing that from December 2024 to July 2025, he stole manuscripts from the university\u2019s library, according to the release. Prosecutors say Ying brought a dummy manuscript back to the library after stealing the real one. He also traveled back and forth from China. Authorities did not say whether the stolen manuscripts were recovered.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation began when several rare Chinese manuscripts went missing from the UCLA library system and <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2025-08-08\/bay-area-man-used-aliases-and-dummy-books-steal-rare-chinese-manuscripts-from-ucla-feds-says\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">investigators found<\/a> they were viewed by someone named \u201cAlan Fujimori,\u201d according to the release. <\/p>\n<p>Officials searched Ying\u2019s hotel in Brentwood and found blank manuscripts and paperwork similar to the books that Ying had checked out from the university, according to the release. <\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement also found materials, including pre-made labels, that could be used to create \u201cdummy\u201d books, according to the release. After Ying\u2019s arrest, officials also found a fake California ID with the name of \u201cAustin Chen\u201d and two library cards with the names \u201cJason Wang\u201d and \u201cAustin Chen.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>In December 2024, Ying pleaded guilty to stealing a 17th century manuscript from the Qing dynasty, according to the release. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Northern California man was sentenced Wednesday to a year in federal prison for stealing historical Chinese manuscripts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[157943,6577,7,9,34230,8,54060,24105,157944,157941,157942,157940,35921,62038,1511,3335,157945,1816],"class_list":["post-392643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-austin-chen","tag-authority","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-man","tag-california-news","tag-central-district","tag-december","tag-dummy-document","tag-fake-name","tag-historic-chinese-manuscript","tag-jeffrey-ying","tag-library","tag-manuscript","tag-news-release","tag-official","tag-ucla-library","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}