A fake power repair van was parked inside the police station. Photo by Li Guobin, a correspondent of our newspaper.
BEIJING, October X (Reporters Mu Yi and Shi Ce) - Yesterday morning, three men dressed in electrician uniforms drove a van marked with the words "power repair" to Dayangfang Beicun Village in Daxing District, which is currently undergoing demolition, to "repair" the cables. When questioned by the villagers, the men were exposed and subsequently arrested by the police who arrived on the scene. It turned out that these three men had disguised themselves as electricians and were brazenly stealing cables. Currently, the three have been criminally detained by the Daxing police.
Dayangfang Beicun Village in Yizhuang Township, Daxing District, is currently undergoing demolition work, with most of the villagers having already moved out.
Yesterday morning, a yellow van marked with the words "power repair" appeared in Dayangfang Village. Three men dressed in electrician uniforms and wearing safety helmets got out of the vehicle and confidently put on professional tools, climbing up the utility poles to cut the wires. The three men claimed they were employees of the power company, tasked with removing the old electricity meters from the village. The villagers were puzzled because their regular electrician wasn't present as usual, "Could something be amiss?" They immediately called their local electrician for verification.
"I don't even know them," said the village electrician, confirming that the three men were "impostors." The villagers then reported the incident to the police. Officers from the Yizhuang Police Station arrived at the scene, apprehending the three men. Inside the van, they discovered more than ten electricity meters and over 200 meters of cable.
Yesterday, reporters visited Dayangfang Beicun Village. By the small river on the west side of the village, severed wires lay scattered on the ground. Nearby workers stated that these wires were cut yesterday morning, "I thought there was an issue with the circuit, so I didn't pay much attention." Grandma Li, a villager, said that a week ago she saw a van marked with the words "power repair" parked nearby, "I thought that van looked irregular; the yellow paint seemed like it was applied by someone themselves."
According to the police, the three men are from Tang County, Hebei Province. They had worked as electricians in a private enterprise but resigned in March this year and hadn't found new job opportunities since. Since one of the suspects, Li Mou, owned a van, the three came up with the idea of disguising it as a power repair vehicle to steal cables. According to their confession, they chose to act in Dayangfang Beicun Village because it's currently under demolition, has fewer people around, making their actions less likely to be noticed. "We never expected to get caught on our first attempt."
Currently, the case is still under investigation.