FBI Offers $10,000 Reward For Information In Zhang Disappearance
Visiting scholar Yingying Zhang of China came to the U of I Urbana campus in April, and has been missing since June 9. University of Illinois Police
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information that'll help locate Yingying Zhang, a visiting scholar from China who disappeared from the University of Illinois at Urbana. And the university credit union is raising money to help members of her family who are in Champaign-Urbana during the search.
The twenty-six-year-old Zhang was about a month into a yearlong appointment at the central Illinois university when she disappeared June 9.
Campus police say surveillance video shows her entering a black Saturn Astra vehicle at a bus stop on Goodwin Avenue on campus in Urbana that afternoon. Her friends told authorities she had gone out to sign a lease.
Authorities have labeled the case a kidnapping, but aren't ruling anything out. The FBI announced the reward Saturday.
Zhang was working in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the university's College of ACES (Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences), researching photosynthesis and crop productivity. University officials say Zhang's visiting scholar appointment runs through April 2018.
She is from Jianyang, China.
The U of I Community Credit Union says it has now set up an account and a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for family members to use as needed while they are in Champaign-Urbana.
Donations can be at www.gofundme.com/missing-u-of-i-scholar or any credit union branch.