Chapter 183 The Limitations of the Times
Qiao Jiali handed the two videotapes to the technical department. Although Hongcheng had not developed any high-tech criminal investigation technology applications in 1997, the Municipal Bureau still had some basic computer technology processing capabilities.
After receiving the videotape, the technical department checked it and said that it would take some time to capture the faces in it. The reason was that the surveillance video was not clear enough. After pausing, the faces in most of the pictures were blurry. When playing, the frame rate was continuous, so the visual experience would be better.
Therefore, they need to process it manually and export the clearest image of the face. Otherwise, after faxing and copying, it will be too blurry by the time it finally reaches the hands of police forces across the city, and its use will be very limited.
Qiao Jiali didn't understand these technical things either, so she could only hope that they would do it as soon as possible.
However, it was easier to deal with the videotape from the van. After the technical department adjusted the brightness of the video to the maximum, they could see it.
Qiao Jiali copied it down immediately: Macro A34U73.
With the license plate number, Qiao Jiali immediately went to the traffic police detachment and immediately found out the vehicle to which the license plate belonged.
But when the traffic police detachment showed her the vehicle registration information, she was stunned.
Because the information clearly stated that it was a black compact car, not a white van at all.
But she could clearly see the video Zhou Yi brought back from the technical department, and it was a white van.
Qiao Jiali handed a copy of the vehicle registration information to Wu Yongcheng, and Zhou Yi and Chen Yan came over to take a look.
Sure enough, the vehicle type column said compact sedan and the body color column said black.
Wu Yongcheng stared at the information, frowning and thinking.
Suddenly, Wu Yongcheng and Zhou Yi said in unison: "Clone car!"
Zhou Yi said, "There's something I've never understood. In the Suiyuan case, the vehicle the kidnappers used was a stolen car with its license plate removed. So why was it a stolen car with its license plate obscured this time? Why is there such a difference?"
Wu Yongcheng said: "The kidnappers initially removed the license plate to avoid being discovered as a stolen vehicle, but they must have later realized that driving a vehicle without a license plate on the road would actually attract the attention of traffic police, thus exposing it."
Zhou Yi nodded. "Yes, it's very likely that this criminal gang changed their strategy after nearly getting into trouble with stolen vehicles without license plates. Cars with cloned license plates can be driven normally without attracting attention. Covering the license plates once they get close to Hongcheng Baodi can further reduce the risk."
Wu Yongcheng cursed, "These bastards are so cunning. Hurry up and find the traffic police detachment to investigate this clue. They need to arrest those who have recently been arrested or have a similar criminal record. Hurry."
"Okay, Captain Wu, I'll go now." Qiao Jiali went out again and went straight to the traffic police detachment.
Although the Traffic Police Detachment and the Criminal Investigation Detachment are both subordinate units of the Municipal Bureau, the Traffic Police Detachment is not located in the Municipal Bureau, but in the Traffic Management Bureau not far from the Municipal Bureau.
"Master, I have a question." Chen Yan said.
"you say."
"Those people at the nightclub, don't they know they might be photographed? Nana having nude photos taken by Liu Jianshe wasn't something they planned, but those people who went to the nightclub weren't an accident. Aren't they afraid of being exposed?"
This time, Wu Yongcheng didn't say anything and just reached out to Zhou Yi.
Zhou Yi immediately understood and said, "Brother Yan, I have a few opinions. First, the motive for most professional criminals is money. There are psychopathic murderers like Hannibal, but the proportion of them appearing in our country is still very low."
Zhou Yi had watched "The Silence of the Lambs" when he was in police academy. It was recommended by their teacher, so Zhou Yi guessed that Chen Yan must have watched it too.
"Money-driven crimes, whether they involve robbery, theft, fraud, or kidnapping, all have a single purpose: to squander the money. From a criminal psychology perspective, those who commit crimes for money share some common traits: a penchant for unearned gain, a penchant for taking shortcuts, and an unwillingness to earn wealth through legitimate labor."
"This group is no exception. Judging by their nationwide roaming, they must be without families, or perhaps they've completely abandoned them. This is the only way they can be so homeless. And people without families, armed with vast amounts of unearned wealth, will undoubtedly spend it on pornography, gambling, and drugs. So even if they have a strong sense of anti-detection, they can't avoid wandering around. Otherwise, the money they earn through these risks won't be worth the money they earn."
"Then, they must have committed more than just Suiyuan and Ducheng before. I think their lifestyle should be like this: commit a crime once, get a large ransom, and then move to another place to live, living a life of luxury. When the money is almost gone, they go to an unfamiliar city to look for targets to commit crimes again. The cities they choose should be mainly small cities. Look at the provincial capital, there are so many wealthy people and big entrepreneurs, but they don't commit crimes in the provincial capital." After all, if there were similar cases in the provincial capital, they would have received the simultaneous information by now.
"So, it's normal that they're not very vigilant about surveillance. After all, in Hongcheng, there aren't even any cameras on the streets. I heard that major cities in the south have already installed electronic police."
Chen Yan was stunned: "What is electronic police?"
"It's just a camera installed on the road, but there's a complete system behind it that can capture information about all the vehicles that pass by."
"It's so awesome! I wish we in Hongcheng would have this electronic police soon. It will be of great help to our investigation and visit work." Chen Yan said excitedly.
Zhou Yi thought to himself, "Brother Yan, you're dreaming. If I remember correctly, electronic police were first used in Shenzhen, a city in southern China, this year. It was the first of its kind in the country. If Hongcheng wants to use it, they'll have to wait. With Hongcheng's municipal finances, they can't afford it."
Moreover, electronic police are nothing compared to the Sky Eye, which is much more powerful. For the police of this era, this thing is like a fairy tale.
"How do you know there are electronic police in the south?" Wu Yongcheng suddenly asked.
"I read the news." Zhou Yi said frankly.
Wu Yongcheng nodded and said, "Continue."
"Where were you talking about? Oh, cameras. So far, we've only found two places with cameras: Hongcheng Baodi and the Golden Phoenix Nightclub. Brother Yan, think about it, we police officers don't even think about that much, so how could a few unmotivated criminals think of that much?"
The reason is actually very simple, that is, some technologies are beyond the conventional knowledge of the times, such as surveillance, and later DNA, the Internet, etc. Many ordinary people in that era actually found it difficult to realize the impact of these things on themselves.
This is the limitation given by the times.
Chen Yan nodded as if he understood something.
Wu Yongcheng said, "Zhou Yi made a particularly good point: the motive for professional criminals is basically to make money. Unlike foreigners, our country doesn't have such deeply ingrained religious beliefs, so those bizarre criminal motives are quite rare."
Zhou Yi thought, that's not necessarily true. We don't have deep-rooted religious beliefs. Even when we go to temples, we usually pray for "Buddha's blessing." But we do have folk superstitions, and there are many tragedies caused by them.
Zhou Yi had a college classmate who worked in a suburban police station in his hometown after graduation. In his previous life, he worked diligently and rose to the position of director.
Many years later, at a small class reunion, that classmate was drinking and cursing "fuck", but his eyes were red.
In the township under the jurisdiction of his police station, there was a widow who made a living by performing "soul-touching" rituals. The so-called "soul-touching" rituals involved children who suddenly fell ill with a persistent high fever. Instead of rushing them to the hospital, the locals assumed the child's soul had been lost, leading to their illness.
Then they would find the witch and let her touch the child, and she would know where the child's soul had gone.
The parents go to the place where the soul was lost, burn paper and kowtow, then call the child's name all the way home, and the child's soul will follow back.
This witch relies on this and is very famous in the surrounding area. Many people come to see her.
This kind of thing was ridiculous in itself, and what was even more ridiculous was that the witch's son later got married and had a pair of twins, a boy and a girl.
As a result, one time, in the middle of winter, my daughter-in-law and her two children, who were over three years old, were at home. Because they used the coal stove in the house improperly, when the adults came back, all three of them were unconscious.
Classmate Zhou Yi said: This fucking idiot knows that he is suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning and needs to be rushed to the hospital.
As a result, when the witch saw that the mother and her two children had rosy complexions, she immediately said that it was okay. She had been feeling souls for so many years and knew at once that the souls of the three people had been invited by the Bodhisattva in the local temple to play because the Bodhisattva liked her grandchildren. Then she asked her son to go to the temple to burn incense and kowtow to call back the souls of the mother and her two children.
So, before his son came back, the mother and her two children died.
When the son came back, he found that his wife and the twins, a boy and a girl, were gone. He was stunned on the spot.
It was the onlookers who notified the village chief, who then called the police. When the police arrived, they didn't even call an ambulance, but instead notified the local forensic doctor. The autopsy results revealed that the mother and her two children died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The witch even scolded the police for being clueless. At that time, the mother and her two children had rosy complexions, which meant they had been invited by the Bodhisattva. The reason they didn't come back was because the Bodhisattva loved his grandchildren so much that he took the mother and her two children to the Western Paradise to enjoy happiness.
The forensic doctor angrily told her that the reason why the three people had rosy faces was because hemoglobin and carbon monoxide in the human body combined to form carboxyhemoglobin, which then appeared red through a large number of capillaries distributed in the skin and mucous membranes.
But the fortune teller didn't believe the police at all and said they knew nothing.
That night, the son picked up a kitchen knife and hacked his fortune-teller mother to death, and then hanged himself from the beam of his house.
Zhou Yi said, "It was because of feudal superstition that my whole family was killed."
Zhou Yi still remembers this incident clearly in his previous life. Although we don’t have Hannibal or Saw, we do have some unique tragedies.
"By the way, Captain Wu, why didn't I see that person?" Zhou Yi asked.
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