The Shadow Market for Cultural Heritage: A Cautionary Tale from UCLA's Library Shelves The theft and forgery of rare cultural artifacts have long plagued institutions worldwide, but a recent case in Los Angeles highlights the brazen nature of these crimes.
In 2022, Jeffrey Ying, a 39 year old Californian, was sentenced to a year in prison for substituting a valuable 17th century Chinese manuscript at UCLA's library with a fake.
The modus operandi employed by Ying is all too familiar: he would borrow rare works from the library using various aliases and then return them with dummy manuscripts in their place.