Jeffrey Ying, a 39-year-old Chinese-American from Fremont, California, was sentenced on July 8, 2026, to 12 months and one day in prison for stealing rare Chinese manuscripts from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) library [1, 2, 3, 4]. He also received one year of home confinement and three years of supervised release as part of the sentence [1, 2, 3, 4]. Ying had already served about one month in custody, which was credited toward his prison term [5, 1].

Between December 2024 and July 2025, Ying repeatedly borrowed over 10 valuable ancient Chinese manuscripts from the UCLA library under multiple false names, including Jason Wang, Alan Fujimori, and Austin Chen [5, 1, 2, 3, 4]. He stole works dating back to the Ming dynasty Hongwu era in 1393, Ming Wanli era in 1575, and 17th-century Qing dynasty manuscripts [5, 1, 4].

Ying’s theft method involved swapping the originals with carefully crafted fake copies that he returned to the library while keeping the authentic manuscripts temporarily. Surveillance footage showed the same individual borrowing all the stolen items [5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4]. After the thefts, he frequently traveled to China and possibly Hong Kong and South Korea [5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4].

A raid on Ying's hotel room near UCLA uncovered materials used to forge the fake copies, including blank manuscripts, blank paper matching the stolen books’ style, pre-made fake library asset tags, and forged identification cards [5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4]. Police also found multiple forged California ID cards and fake library cards on him when he was arrested in August 2025 [5, 1, 2, 3, 4].

The US Department of Justice stated Ying used multiple aliases to access classic Chinese works, some over 600 years old, at the UCLA library [6]. The total estimated value of the stolen manuscripts was approximately $216,000 US dollars [5, 1, 2, 3, 4].

Ying pleaded guilty to the federal felony charge of theft of major artwork in October 2025 [1, 2, 3, 4]. No fines were imposed, and restitution amounts remain to be determined [5, 2, 3, 4]. Until recently, UCLA allowed public library card applications online without requiring government-issued photo IDs, which enabled Ying’s access to rare materials [5, 4].