Our news (reporter Baiyun) - On September 7, the Li Village Criminal Police Unit of Lüquan City arrested three individuals suspected of robbery. The trio is suspected of jointly robbing bank withdrawers, but all three suspects are deaf-mutes, which has caused difficulties for police during the interrogation process.
Suspects trailed bank withdrawers
This is a segment from a bank surveillance video on July 22. Because it was the day of the total solar eclipse, people outside the bank can be seen holding film and looking up at the sky.
At 9:03 that morning, shortly after the bank opened, a few customers were conducting business when a man walked into the hall. This man first stood with his hands behind his back, pretending to read the rules and regulations on the wall, then sat in the waiting area, staring at the customers who were conducting business.
At 9:09, an elderly man in a white shirt left the hall. This man then got up from his seat and followed him out. Surveillance footage outside the bank captured what happened next: the elderly man walked away with his bag, while the trailing man rode a motorcycle, circled around the bank, and disappeared. A few minutes later, the elderly man was robbed of 4500 yuan by two men on his way home.
The stolen mobile phone was still in use
The above case is just one of more than ten robberies that have occurred since last September. Captain Feng Lidui of the Li Village Criminal Police Unit stated that for some time, the police had frequently received reports from the public about being followed and robbed after withdrawing money from the bank. On the morning of August 6, a middle-aged woman from Zhengding County fell while her handbag, placed in the basket of her bike, was forcibly dragged by the suspect, resulting in four broken ribs and a fractured clavicle, causing serious injury.
During the investigation of all the cases, the police found that initially the suspects only stole or robbed cash, but later they also targeted other belongings such as mobile phones. One victim's phone continued to show consumption records after it was stolen. Upon investigation, the police unexpectedly discovered that the suspect had not dialed any numbers with this phone, only sending messages. The police initially suspected that the suspect might be a deaf-mute.
All three suspects are deaf-mutes
On the afternoon of September 7, the police arrested the first suspect Guo in Xingtang County. As the police had deduced, Guo was a deaf-mute. The police brought in a teacher from a special education school to communicate with Guo and subsequently arrested two other suspects, Li and Hu, on the same day.
What the police did not expect was that all three were deaf-mutes. Currently, the deciphered sign language shows that the three had worked on the same construction site, where they met. However, further questioning regarding their motives proved difficult due to their lack of knowledge of standard sign language. Moreover, because the three had limited literacy, the police recorded the entire communication process on video and submitted it to relevant departments as evidence.
Currently, the police have preliminarily solved 12 cases involving over 50,000 yuan. The police warn that recently, illegal elements have shifted their targets to withdrawers from rural credit cooperatives and banks, urging withdrawers to stay vigilant.
■ Photos taken by our reporter Liu Feiyue