Chương 18: Chapter 18: Gang Theft Case

Jiang Yuan sat in his chair, savoring the new skill he had acquired.

Unlike fingerprinting, crime scene investigation is a basic skill that nearly every police officer must master. It could be said that every officer, to some extent, is involved in crime scene investigations.

However, skills in the direction of criminal investigation all share one characteristic: once you start to delve into details, the difficulty and the demands shoot up.

For example, the crime scene investigation skills that a ordinary police officer at a local police station must have are more oriented towards small-scale and comprehensive scenarios. The specific skills required by traffic police or criminal investigators differ significantly. Large-scale crime scene investigations usually require professional command, such as when raiding an office involved in telecommunication fraud. The toughest part is how to secure evidence before the criminals can destroy or hide it. Incidents that occur in public places pose even more challenges to crime scene work.

In theory, a crime scene should be investigated like scenes depicted in movies and TV shows, where professionals equipped with specialized gear meticulously inspect the scene. For instance, marking evidence systematically, planning the route to enter the scene in advance, and even laying down transparent boards for investigators to walk on, all to minimize the impact on the crime scene.

But in reality, police departments that can afford professional crime scene investigators and gear typically start at the municipal level, and it's not just a matter of budget—some county-level police departments in the south may be financially sound, but if they don't see enough fatalities or frequent major incidents, even the most professional staffers won't have opportunities to improve. They either get transferred elsewhere or simply become redundant.

Also, for common minor cases, getting colleagues and superiors to cooperate with the requirements of crime scene investigation is no easy task.

The crime scene investigation skills that Jiang Yuan had previously mastered were mainly geared towards forensic scenes. Common ones include cases of homicide or personal injury. For different types of cases, there might be specific studies on crime scene investigation for illegal medical practice, and such. As for skill level, it's merely introductory at best.

In Uncle Seventeen's cases, Jiang Yuan's contributions could be very limited.

However, the newly acquired skill considerably boosted Jiang Yuan's confidence. If that delicious and affordable fried rice with eggs were LV3, wouldn't this LV4 crime scene investigation be akin to abalone egg fried rice?

"What are you thinking about?" Wang Zhong nudged Jiang Yuan, then said, "I found a case, take a look and see if it's suitable for you."

"Is it from our county?" Jiang Yuan looked up and asked first.

Doctor Wu said beside him with relief, "Xiao Jiang can do it. He's starting to show a sense of ownership."

Filled with envy, Wang Zhong sighed, "After all, there's a reward of ten thousand. To be honest, I've been working for such a long time, and this is the first time I've seen someone from the Criminal Investigation Unit receive a reward. Last time, when the Chief made a statement about a murder cold case, they even gave the criminal investigators 100,000."

For a murder cold case with any leads, the detective unit and the county bureau tend to follow up quite actively. A typical example was the stakeout at a fugitive's home on New Year's Eve, which was miserably long, yet full of anticipation.

Most of the cold cases were also solved with such crude methods. To the detectives of Ningtai County, technical methods had always been nothing more than a supplement to a supplement.

Actually, Jiang Yuan did not care about the ten thousand. But he really liked this sense of honor.

For someone from Jiang Village, trying to legitimately increase one's wealth was extremely difficult and lacked cost-effectiveness. You could be struggling hard, and then the land in your family gets requisitioned again. Especially when one's father is from Jiang Fuzhen, this difficulty and lack of cost-effectiveness multiplies. The name "Fuzhen" is not just for show.

However, as one of the Jiang Village People, it was extremely difficult to feel a sense of honor. If you did a good job, you would be accused of exploiting your family's wealth and status. If you did an exceptional job, it was commonly assumed that you had used money to achieve it.

In schools and workplaces, simple rewards became precious.

"Let's talk about the case first. When the rewards come, I'll cook fried rice for everyone," Jiang Yuan felt money was not important and so decided to acknolwledge his team by personally cooking fried rice as a token of his gratitude.

Wang Zhong listened and shook his head helplessly, pulling out the case file and saying, "Take a look at this, will you?"

Wang Zhong often screened cases and paid close attention to those that could be solved directly through fingerprints or where fingerprints were a key clue.

But his capabilities were limited, and so were the cases he could solve with his screenings. Now that Jiang Yuan had joined, he felt as though he'd gained a blissful cheat code.

Jiang Yuan glanced briefly at the case files and said, "Is this a theft case?"

"Don't look down on theft cases," Wang Zhong detected Jiang Yuan's tone and replied. "This is a key case in our county. A group of people used a modified vehicle with a storage tank and stealthily siphoned oil from trucks at highway service areas. Some reported it to our Ningtai County and several nearby counties. It is essentially a series of cases. Cracking this case would mean solving more than a dozen cases at once."

Now somewhat knowledgeable, Jiang Yuan replied with a smile, "As for thieves, if you don't catch them red-handed, they probably won't confess."

"At least it's connected to several cases. Moreover, my hunch is that their car is custom-modified, so it's unlikely they only committed a few crimes and called it quits. There is probably a possibility they are committing crimes nationwide. Gang theft is pretty significant, right?" Wang Zhong said with a slight lack of confidence. He had chosen this case with a certain idea in mind because he had spent a considerable time on the fingerprints without success. On one hand, he felt regret, and on the other, he wanted to see how Jiang Yuan compared them and whether he could succeed.

However, as he mentioned, the cost-effectiveness of a gang theft case was still relatively high.

If one were to rank them by combat power, a fresh theft case would be worth about 0.1 points, which seemed low. But when you consider the concept of gang theft, the score could double or even triple. In other words, solving one case could be equivalent to solving something worth 0.2 or 0.3 points.

Furthermore, gang theft often meant there were multiple thefts, so solving one instance often meant solving multiple instances. With some luck, one could potentially close dozens of cases in one swoop, which made the cost-effectiveness rise even more.

Going a step further, catching a suspect could bring about 1 point of KPI per person. If the gang was large enough, this could be a significant contribution.

Last but not least, units like the criminal police team had clear targets for the number of cases solved each year. Typically, they would fill the gap with a series of theft cases.

As for Jiang Yuan, he had no particular preferences or goals, big cases or important cases did not make much difference to him.

After making some casual remarks, Jiang Yuan settled down comfortably and singled out 5 fingerprints with a loop pattern from the numerous prints involved in the case, saying, "I am better at dealing with these for now; I won't handle the rest yet."

"Then you do that first," Wang Zhong didn't understand why Jiang Yuan would only work on loops, assuming it was some sort of quirk, but now he was watching intently, more interested in seeing Jiang Yuan's specific methodologies.

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