$40,000 reward for missing scholar

The family of a missing Chinese scholar announced that they are working with Champaign County Crime Stoppers to offer a reward of $40,000 for information leading to an arrest in the disappearance of Zhang Yingying, 26.

A visiting Chinese scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus, Zhang was last seen getting into a black Saturn Astra on June 9. She has been missing since.

On Monday, representatives from Crime Stoppers, the FBI and the university police department were present at a news conference held by UIUC and Zhang's family.

The new reward comes in addition to the FBI's offer of up to $10,000 for the location or whereabouts of Zhang.

"These are two different rewards that are not combined," an FBI official said. "We have broadcast the poster on the FBI Springfield webpage, on Facebook, Instagram, as well as Twitter. So, there are a lot of media sources."

Founded 30 years ago, Champaign County Crime Stoppers is a non-profit organization that allows people to anonymously provide information about criminal activity.

"It is the largest reward Crime Stoppers has ever offered," said John Hecker, a local representative of Crime Stoppers.

"Crime Stoppers is serving as a facilitator for this. The money was not raised by Crime Stoppers, and is not coming from Crime Stoppers' fund," Hecker said. "This is kind of through the family via a GoFundMe account."

Since the family has arrived in the US, GoFundMe, a platform to raise money for Zhang, has already collected more than $6,000.

"We plan to use most of the money as a fund to search for Zhang. Anyone with clues can call, and the reward is totally anonymous," Hecker said.

Anyone with information can contact Crime Stoppers by calling 217-373-TIPS (8477), at http://373tips.com or by using the P3 Tips mobile app.

Providing information to Crime Stoppers is anonymous.

"Calls and messages to Crime Stoppers are routed to a third-party call center, which strips all identifying information from the call before forwarding the information to police," the university police's website said. Hecker mentioned that callers are assigned a unique identifying number. Tips are then sent to the FBI.

Xiao Jiaqiao in New York contributed to this story.

China Daily