Chapter 97 Mandala 17
Luo Siwei knew that there was a scam going on that deliberately played payment recordings to deceive small business owners who needed voice notifications and didn't have time to check their accounts.
When people hear the notification that the money has arrived, they will instinctively think that the money has arrived, but in fact, it is completely false information.
The old woman was standing far away from the mobile phone, the road was very noisy, and she was deaf and blind. She was not familiar with this scam and was not vigilant enough.
Luo Siwei calmly analyzed, "This kind of scam only takes one chance for the victim to become alert. They must be playing a game. Otherwise, so many students wouldn't suddenly set their sights on this stall at the same time."
Huo Cunsheng nodded and mentioned a detail: "I noticed that even the volume of the recordings they played was uniform."
This is a game mission.
There may even be someone behind the scenes guiding them on how to operate.
Some of those young men came alone, and some came in pairs.
As they leave the stall, their pace quickens and even their laughter can be heard in the video.
According to calculations, they can get a reward of several hundred yuan for completing the game.
Business was very good that day, and the old man was very excited as he kept selling goods.
When an elderly person who has been busy all afternoon opens his mobile phone and sees that there is no payment record on the phone, he is likely to go from great joy to great sorrow, feel helpless, and then have a heart attack.
Thus, this tragedy happened.
Shen Qing finally understood everything. He cursed, "What a bunch of beasts! Don't they have elderly people at home? How could they do such a thing to an elderly woman?"
Huo Cunsheng also sighed: "This mother-in-law shouldn't have died."
After figuring out the cause, everyone felt bad. A life was lost just like that.
Luo Siwei calmed down and said, "Let's watch the video again and count the number of people. Let's see if there are any clues." Then she called to Shen Qing, "Take some notes."
Chi Li, who had been sitting silently, suddenly said, "27."
As soon as Shen Qing took out the pen, he was stunned: "What?"
Chi Li explained: "In the video just now, there were 27 people buying things. Among them, there were 16 boys and 11 girls. The total amount of money that should have been paid but was not paid was 325 yuan."
Others didn't notice these details when they first looked at it, but Chi Li had already counted the data clearly.
Chi Li then calmly analyzed, "Judging from the game situation, this is at least an intermediate to advanced level question. There are 27 people participating, which means that there are at least 27 students in the school who have reached this level."
"The distribution of low, medium, and high-level people is like a pyramid. If we calculate it this way, the number of low-level people may be even greater than we estimated." Luo Siwei said softly, "We still have more research to do."
Then she turned around and asked, "Old Huo, who are these people that the other surveillance cameras didn't capture?"
If we can have a list of these 27 people and then follow the transmission chain up and down to investigate, we can save a lot of investigation time.
Unfortunately, this surveillance camera only captured the legs and part of the backs of those people.
Huo Cunsheng sighed: "As for me, I just asked several people to find the surveillance footage, and this is the clearest one. The others are even less valuable."
Luo Siwei asked: "Has the identity of the deceased been confirmed?"
Huo Cunsheng said, "It's confirmed. It's an elderly widower living near the school. There's only one person registered in the household registration book, and even the funeral was handled by distant relatives."
Luo Siwei frowned and asked, "Why did you choose such an ordinary old woman as the target in this game?"
Huo Cunsheng analyzed: "Perhaps this was just a game test, and the old woman's death might have been an accident. After all, heart attacks can be somewhat accidental. If she had been more alert and realized she was being tricked at the beginning, this incident could have been avoided."
Luo Siwei suddenly realized that Principal Meng had been sitting silently by the side, not participating in their discussion, nor expressing any opinion on the matter.
She turned her head sharply and asked her: "Principal Meng, do you know about this?"
Teacher Meng shook his head: "No one has come to school to report the situation recently. We are in school and don't know what is happening outside."
Luo Siwei noticed that her body was shaking slightly.
Principal Meng suddenly asked softly, "If those children killed someone, what would you do?"
Huo Cunsheng heard her say this and thought the school was worried about the outcome. He said, "This matter may be difficult to handle in terms of procedures. Those children didn't kill anyone personally. Besides...it's difficult to hold everyone accountable."
Shen Qing said: "Of course it has something to do with them. This is negligence causing death."
Chi Li rationally analyzed, "You can't ignore the fact that there's a mastermind behind the release of this game. He's the real culprit. The 27 children are accomplices, and their actions led to the old woman's death. But handling this matter presents some difficulties. The children are still minors, and the amount of money each individual defrauded was not large. Most importantly, the mother-in-law's family hasn't contacted the school yet. I'm afraid the body has been cremated, and without an autopsy, it's difficult to prove a direct link between the old woman's death and the fraud."
Chi Liyi's words calmed Luo Siwei down. While the old man's passing was regrettable, it was also difficult to judge and punish all the students who played the game. They were accomplices, and it was difficult to judge them from a legal perspective.
Principal Meng frowned for a moment, then asked them, "Officers, how should this matter be handled? Should we just let it go?"
Huo Cunsheng said, "We definitely won't let this go. If we can find out the truth, we will definitely criticize and educate the students, let them know the consequences of their actions, and make them realize their mistakes. Then we will report the matter, try them according to the law, and see how to deal with it."
Shen Qing nodded and said, "We must curb the development of this situation. Because of their game, people have lost their lives, and they are still squandering the game rewards. If we don't tell the children about this, they may commit more crimes."
Teacher Meng sighed, as if she was still dissatisfied with the way they were handled. She lowered her head and said, "They are murderers. Shouldn't they be arrested and severely sentenced to pay the price for their actions?"
Old Huo scratched his head and said, "Morality is morality, and law is law. Their behavior is certainly abhorrent, but for minors, we should focus on criticism and education."
Luo Siwei said, "I think the most important thing is to let the children know the seriousness of the situation and help some of them turn back from their mistakes. Even if we can only educate a few of them, it will be worth it."
Chi Li concluded: "The top priority now is to try our best to confirm the identities of these teenagers."
If we don't find out who did this, everything else is just empty talk.
Luo Siwei made work arrangements: "We will visit the surrounding area later to continue investigating this matter. However, first and foremost, we need to find out how the app spread within the school and identify its source. This will prevent this tragedy from happening again."
Shen Qing and Huo Cunsheng nodded in agreement.
After the meeting, Luo Siwei found Chi Li again while Principal Meng was away.
She said, "Captain Chi, I watched the video again and recognized someone in it."
Chi Li asked her: "Who is it?"
"Yu Tingting." Luo Siwei then explained, "When I was talking to her in the psychology classroom just now, I noticed that she was wearing a pair of pink lace socks, and the seventh girl in the video happened to be wearing a pair of the same style of socks."
After watching this video, Luo Siwei finally understood why when she asked Yu Tingting what specific games she had played, she hesitated and was particularly cautious, and finally said those words.
"Yu Tingting is afraid that the police investigation will implicate her. There's some reflection in her words, so she might not be hopeless. Also, perhaps the child doesn't know about the old man's death yet."
After Luo Siwei finished speaking, he looked at Chi Li and said, "Also, I have a way to find most of these students."
Chi Li asked: "How are you going to investigate?"
Luo Siwei proposed his own method: "West Street is very close to the school gate. We can use time estimation and combine it with other surveillance videos to complete the investigation."
Seeing Chi Li was a little confused, she explained in further detail: "In order to avoid congestion outside the school, the dismissal time of No. 3 Middle School is divided into time periods. In the same time period, only one class will leave the school at the school gate, and the second class will come out three minutes later. So generally, ten classes in a grade will be dismissed one after another for half an hour."
Chi Li understood what she meant: "Students won't cause a large congestion. Other surveillance cameras can clearly see which class it is and who is passing through that intersection. They can also infer who is buying things based on their walking speed."
Luo Siwei nodded, her eyes clear and her voice calm, "Although the surveillance video on West Street isn't clear enough, the surveillance at the school gate and the main road might capture some key footage."
"We know the time each person in the video passed by. The video captured their feet, so we can observe their characteristics: leg thickness, height, shoes, socks, even gait and back view. Combining these clues, we can find clear images of those people from other surveillance footage and confirm their identities."
At this point, she added, "However, I'm talking about an ideal situation. This is a slow and meticulous comparison process, and there may be other situations where the surveillance footage is unclear and insufficient to determine the cause. But I think we can at least find some of these 27 people."
Luo Siwei said this with confidence. This method only requires manpower and some time.
"It's a very smart approach, and it's very feasible." Chi Li praised her, and then said, "Let Ni Xiang take people to try it out and see if they can find anything."
After finishing the conversation, Luo Siwei asked, "Captain Chi, do I need to talk to Yu Tingting again first?"
Chi Li pondered for a moment and shook his head: "Let's wait until the list is more complete. Anyway, the incident has already happened. Let's investigate slowly to avoid alerting the enemy."
Luo Siwei nodded: "I have a hunch that this list may be very important to the police's subsequent investigation."
The two chatted till this point, and Chi Li asked Luo Siwei again, "You clearly have a solution, but you didn't say it just now. Are you...testing that Principal Meng?"
Luo Siwei nodded: "I think that Principal Meng is a little strange."
She tried to analyze the situation. "Logically, Principal Liang would have assigned one of his most trusted teachers to accompany us and keep the school informed of the police investigation. From the school's perspective, they would have done their best to eliminate any negative impact. But Principal Meng seems to want us to deal strictly with those students."
She thought about how to express that strange feeling, but in the end she couldn't find the words to describe it.
Luo Siwei could only lower his head and say: "Anyway, it's a bit strange."
Chi Li said: "Perhaps she has a strong sense of morality and is considering the issue from the perspective of preventing problems before they occur. I think that giving those students some substantial lessons and punishments may be a deterrent to the overall situation."
Luo Siwei thought for a moment and said, "Kill the chicken to scare the monkey."
Chi Li nodded: "Also, our investigation must be quick enough this time. I'm worried that if the battle drags on too long, it will cause complications."
The other party has started to clear some data, which means that the police's actions have been discovered.
They are in the open, while the other party is in the dark. Those people may take some coping methods.
They have to be very careful and cautious in every step.
The investigation has just begun and it will definitely be a tough battle.
Luo Siwei nodded: "I understand."
Chi Li paused and said, "Be careful."
From the beginning of this investigation, Chi Li felt a little uneasy. He found it difficult to describe his feelings, but he always felt that something was surging as the situation developed.
It was like a long-sleeping sea monster suddenly heard a sound outside, opened an amber eye, looked at the entire seabed, and then began to extend its tentacles.
Perhaps, a storm is brewing.
And they seem to be at the center of the vortex.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
