This is a rather bizarre case,By using fake library cards with three Japanese names, for more than a year, a Chinese man named Jeffrey Ying traded civet cats for princes, made "fake books" to replace ancient Chinese books that had been collected in American libraries for many years, with a total value of over one million, and finally brought the ancient books back to China.
Forging a Japanese identity to do this, for a while, it was really difficult to judge the man's behavior.
On August 6, 38-year-old Ying went to the library to "pick up" books again, and was arrested by the police at the entrance of the library. He was charged by the court with "stealing important works of art." According to local law, this crimeThe maximum penalty is 10 years in prison.
According to public documents, Ying’s illegal behavior has been going on for some time, and can be traced back to October 2024 at the earliest.
At present, the library has determined that there are at least 10 missing precious ancient books. These ancient books are very precious, with a total value of more than 216,000 US dollars.
Among them, the most expensive book, "Tang Shi Pin Hui", was valued at US$70,000, dated 1393, followed by "Collection of Ancient Seals" from the sixth year of Longqing's reign in the Ming Dynasty (1572), valued at US$63,000.
With so many precious works of art lost, why were they discovered only recently?
All I can say is,Their security is indeed not very good, or it may be that they simply cannot understand the importance of these books.
According to the library's requirements, you need to apply in advance to borrow these ancient books, and then the books will be placed in a box and sent to the designated reading room for reading.
It is possible that the suspect wrapped the ancient books with forgeries in the reading room and took them away.
A bug in the library is exposed here.The staff did not perform any inspection upon return. It is precisely because of this that Ying becomes more and more bold.
In early August, he applied for 8 rare ancient books (under the identity of Austin Chen). The library staff became suspicious, and then began to compare people who had frequently borrowed ancient books some time ago.As a result, it was found from the surveillance that the three names "Jason Wang", "Austin Chen" and "Alan Fujimori" are all the same person.
Finally, the police checked the books borrowed under these names. After opening the boxes, they only found fake books that had been transferred.
The key point is that some of these fake books have good counterfeiting skills and are difficult to detect without careful attention. However, some can be found to be fake as long as you flip through them, and some even have blank pages inside.
This also shows once again that the library staff did not do their job well at all and did not care about ancient books at all.
When he was arrested, police found a hotel access card in his pocket, then searched his room and foundMaterials to make fake books and labels, and 2 fake library cards for Austin Chen and Jason Wang, the crime was finally confirmed.
Where did the lost books go?
The police are also helpless about this.
When investigating Ying's movement trajectory, the police found that between December 2024 and July 2025, he frequently traveled to and from China.
Coincidentally, whenever he returns to China, it is usually the day after borrowing books, and the most recent time is no exception. On August 5, he went to the library to "research ancient books", and his flight ticket back to China on August 6 has been booked.
The police suspect that these books were "sent back" to China.
It is worth mentioning that the police also revealed that Ying's crimes may be more than these.
According to public testimony,A person using the same alias as Ying was involved in a similar theft at UC Berkeley. Whether they are the same person or not is unknown.
The case is still under trial. It is still unclear where the ancient Chinese books have gone, whether they have been sold, and where they were sold.
To be honest, this case is really difficult to evaluate. You may say he committed a crime, but at least he brought back the ancient Chinese books that had been exiled abroad. In the past, most of these things were exported for reasons that could not be brought to light.
You say he did a good job, but he committed a crime, which is true.
The point is, this is not necessarily the best home for ancient books.
Just think, if the ancient books were lost to the public, they would probably never be found again. In the library, at least we know where they are.If the crime was committed out of self-interest, it is possible that the books would flow out of China again.
Moreover, the collection of ancient books is very demanding, and it is unknown whether such back and forth will cause damage to the books.
In short, all we can do is wait for the results.