A California man who swapped a library's 17th century Chinese manuscript for a fake was sentenced on Wednesday after admitting to stealing a major artwork.
Jeffrey Ying used a number of aliases to get access to classic works, some over 600 years old, at the library of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the Department of Justice (DoJ) said.
Ying, 39, would check the works out and return days later with dummy manuscripts. He would frequently travel to China shortly thereafter, officials said.
UCLA's library system flagged that several rare Chinese manuscripts were missing and an investigation revealed the books were last viewed by a visitor who identified himself as "Alan Fujimori."
The rare and valuable works are not in regular circulation in the library and must be reserved and checked out, officials said.
