Chapter 247 Gold Shop Robbery

Zhou Yi asked Shi Tao and He Bin to go first, and he would rush over as soon as he finished his work here.

Zhou Yi was also helpless about Lu Zhengfeng's doubts on the phone: "That means the security environment in Luohe is good. These people don't dare to stay in Luohe anymore and have all come here."

"Officer Zhou, you're joking. You in Hongcheng have been solving major cases one after another, and our director is so envious." Lu Zhengfeng said with a smile.

"Just call me Zhou Yi from now on. We are all family, so don't be too distant." Zhou Yi thought to himself, feeling very awkward hearing Lu Zhengfeng being so polite.

"Okay, Zhou Yi, let me first tell you about Tao Cong's situation after he was released from prison."

Lu Zhengfeng said on the phone that Tao Cong was imprisoned three years ago, in June 1994, and was released in April 1995, having actually served ten months.

He was not sure about his whereabouts after he was released from prison, because Tao Cong was not a local and had no fixed place to stay in Luohe.

But he found out that in July 1995, he was detained by the local police station for participating in a fight.

Since he had a criminal record, he was classified as a "key target" during the interrogation. However, it was determined that he was only an accomplice and that the gang fight did not cause any major incident, so he was detained for ten days.

After that, the man's whereabouts became unclear.

However, it can be confirmed from that detention alone that he did not mend his ways after being released from prison and is still an unemployed and idle person in society.

Zhou Yi said, "I arrested Tao Cong yesterday."

"Caught?" Lu Zhengfeng was surprised. "What crime did he commit?"

"Fraud. His accomplice is the Meng Qingtong I'm asking about. Tao Cong explained that he and Meng Qingtong met in Luohe's prison. They had previously attempted to scam someone in Taicheng, but according to him, they were unsuccessful. Then they came to Hongcheng to commit fraud, and succeeded. However, Meng Qingtong's whereabouts are currently unknown. We discovered this Meng who was suspicious while investigating another case."

Then Zhou Yi briefly explained the details of the fraud case involving Meng Qingtong and Tao Cong, including the fact that Meng Qingtong had been missing for more than a month.

"Okay, then I'll apply for Meng Qingtong's case file."

"Okay, thank you for your hard work."

Zhou Yi was about to hang up when Lu Zhengfeng suddenly called out, "Zhou Yi, I have an idea."

"What idea? Tell me."

"Didn't you say we can't find this Meng Qingtong now? I was thinking, if our ex-con from Luohe can run to your Hongcheng, then he can also run somewhere else. You see, if we don't communicate with each other, we won't know a lot of things. If you didn't tell me, I wouldn't know you arrested Tao Cong, right?"

"Is it possible that Meng Qingtong is currently being held in a detention center in some city?"

Lu Zhengfeng's few words made Zhou Yi suddenly enlightened.

"That makes sense! Your idea is a very good investigative method. I'll check it out right away." Zhou Yi couldn't help but say, "Old Lu, you're really good."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Zhengfeng said to himself in confusion: "Old Lu?"

Zhou Yi immediately went to see Director Wang of the command center and asked him to help with the investigation within the province. This time, the focus would be on the detainees in detention centers, because no matter what the case was, the judicial procedures would not be completed in one month, so there was no need to keep an eye on prisons across the country.

Then they contacted the technical department and asked them to send two people to conduct an on-site investigation at the house rented by Meng Qingtong in Donghai Community to confirm whether dismemberment had occurred in the house.

When I returned to the office, Lu Zhengfeng had already faxed over the case materials regarding Tao Cong's previous imprisonment.

Zhou Yi originally just picked it up and took a look at it, because Tao Cong had already told him about it.

But when he picked it up, he found that the case information sent by Lu Zhengfeng actually included the content of the previous gold shop robbery, not just Tao Cong's part.

So Zhou Yi took a few more glances.

The case occurred in early March 1994. At seven o'clock that morning, a gold shop located on a commercial street had just opened the door of the shop and hadn't even turned on the lights when three robbers wearing white cotton masks suddenly rushed in. One of them was holding a sharp knife and two were holding hammers and robbed the gold shop.

In less than three minutes, the three robbers smashed the counter glass and stole a large amount of gold jewelry.

But fortunately there were no casualties and the female salesperson was only kicked twice.

According to the gold shop owner's inventory, the three robbers stole a total of more than 2,000 grams of gold jewelry, and the amount involved was over 150,000 yuan.

Since there were few people in the commercial street at the time of the incident and the crime took place in a very short time, there were few witnesses.

However, the police still found an old man who was collecting rubbish. He had seen three people leaving on a motorcycle in an alley behind the commercial street during the time of the incident.

Luohe police analyzed and determined that this group of robbers had scouted the area in advance and had strong anti-detection capabilities.

In particular, the time chosen to commit the crime happened to be rush hour, when there was a huge flow of people on the road, making it easy to hide.

Moreover, the actual opening time of the gold shop is eight o'clock in the morning. The reason why the salesperson arrives at seven o'clock is because the gold shop has to count and check the goods every morning.

The salesperson who was in charge of opening the door and counting the items was the boss's niece, which directly eliminated the suspicion of collusion between insiders and outsiders.

The police immediately launched a search and investigation, but due to the lack of effective clues, the investigation made no substantial progress.

Finally, they had no choice but to issue a reward notice and solicit clues from the public.

More than half a month after the incident, someone from the local village ran to the police station to report that a guy in the village suddenly became rich and bought a new color TV and motorcycle, which he found very suspicious.

The police station was responsible, although they didn't take it too seriously. After all, there are many people in rural areas who are jealous of others and can't stand seeing others doing well.

They had seen this kind of thing happen quite often after the reward announcement came out, but they still sent police to take a look.

But after arriving at the door, before they had time to ask any questions, the person who was reported suddenly ran away.

He was finally arrested on the spot. During the interrogation, he admitted that he was involved in the gold shop robbery and also gave out the names of his two accomplices.

Luohe police immediately tried to arrest the other two people, but they only caught one of them, and the other one disappeared.

Then they followed the clues and found the channels behind the sale of stolen goods, which eventually turned into a major case, and wiped out the entire stolen goods selling force that had been entrenched in Luohe for many years.

Tao Cong was arrested in this case.

The three robbers were all native Luohe residents and had been unemployed for years. The mastermind was the man who escaped, Li Yong, nicknamed "Old Gun." He was 42 years old at the time and the only one with a criminal record, having been sentenced to four years in prison for robbery in the 1980s.

Luohe police issued a wanted warrant, but three years have passed and Li Yong has never been brought to justice.

The wanted poster in the case file showed Li Yong’s ID photo. He had single eyelids, sunken cheeks, and looked a little sickly, but Zhou Yi could sense a hidden ferocity in his eyes.

What remains is some scattered information collected during the on-site inspection and investigation, among which the two arrested robbers mentioned a prominent feature of Li Yong.

The first knuckle of the middle finger of the right hand is missing half.

Luohe police have verified that Li Yong worked at a printing factory in Luohe when he was young. He later cut off half of his middle finger while operating a paper cutter. He was later fired for stealing from a coworker.

This small detail immediately caught Zhou Yi's attention.

Because in the 614 Savings Bank robbery and murder case, the only clue was half a fingerprint.

But there is something special about this half fingerprint.

Usually if half a fingerprint is left, it will basically be the upper half, which may be left by an unintentional touch.

But the half fingerprint in the June 14th case was the lower half.

But if the fingertip touches something, it is theoretically unlikely that only half of the fingerprint will be left, unless it is on the edge of the object and the upper half of the fingertip is not touched.

But the location of the half fingerprint in the June 14th case clearly does not conform to this logic.

Therefore, Wu Yongcheng and others judged that after killing people and robbing money, the robbers cleaned up the fingerprints left at the scene, but did not wipe them clean. Only the upper half of one fingerprint was wiped off, so this half was left.

But when Zhou Yi looked at the information about the Luohe Gold Shop robbery, he suddenly wondered, is it possible that the half fingerprint was not left because it was not wiped clean, but that the robber was originally missing half of his finger?

Gold shop robbery and savings bank robbery are very similar in nature.

The difference is that gold cannot be turned into money directly and needs to be sold.

Once you grab the cash, you can use it. Although Zhou Yi doesn't know whether savings banks in the 1990s would record the serial numbers of banknotes, even if there were records, it would be a fantasy to track them in real time.

After all, before mobile payment, money would pass through several hands and flow continuously.

And no robber is stupid enough to rob a bank and then deposit the money in another bank.

If we assume that this old man committed a crime again after being silent for three years, and he abandoned the gold shop with lower security measures and chose to rob a savings bank with higher risks, there is only one reason: he now has no good channel to sell the stolen goods.

If that's true, it would be a pleasant surprise.

But the question is, where is this old gun now?

Because the savings bank robbery and murder will not happen for another two months.

According to the investigative information of the Luohe gold shop robbery case, Lao Qian observed the gold shop for at least two weeks and only formulated a robbery plan after he had a clear understanding of the situation of the gold shop.

So now, is this old gun already in Hongcheng, or has it not yet arrived in Hongcheng?

However, since Luo He had issued a wanted order three years ago, it should not be difficult to find a reason to bring this matter up again and convince Wu Yongcheng to mobilize police forces to look for this guy again.

If this old gun was really caught in Hongcheng, he would most likely be one of the robbers in the June 14th case, and this tragedy should be resolved invisibly.

Thinking of this, Zhou Yi couldn't help but get excited.

Before a murder occurs, even if a highly suspected murderer is found, it will be difficult to deal with the case because the murderer has not yet committed the crime.

But if the murderer has an unsolved criminal record and is still wanted, that would be perfect.

Thinking of this, Zhou Yi quickly picked up the phone and called Lu Zhengfeng to learn more about the old gun.