Chapter 275: Black Market Merchant
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
"What do you think, Zhao?" In the safety deposit box vault, Liang Huan was looking at the safety deposit boxes that had been broken into when he said to Zhao Yu, "I have a feeling that behind this robbery, there must be other murder cases!"
"What do you mean?" Zhao Yu looked at the table in the middle of the safety deposit box vault. The valuable goods were organized according to category.
"Look at it this way!" Liang Huan started to analyze, "If the officers were bribed, there should be boxes of cash! Even if they did accept jewellery, they wouldn't just take everything as if they were in a grocery store. Look at these. Vacheron Constantin, Armani, Louis Vuitton…you can find all kinds of brands. They are all very expensive, but who would bribe an officer with this? This is so silly!"
"So?" Zhao Yu asked without lifting his head.
"So, I think these robbers already killed the owners of the safety deposit boxes!" Liang Huan said mysteriously, "They knew that there was some good stuff in the safety deposit boxes, but they couldn't find the keys, or the password was invalid after they killed them. So they robbed the bank!" He continued even though Zhao Yu did not reply, "If not, why would they not come to claim their goods after such a long time?"
Zhao Yu touched the jewellery on the table while thinking whether or not Liang Huan's hypothesis made sense. He got the "Gen-Dui' hexagram that day. He thought he would make great progress in the investigation that day and examine most of the items that were in the safety deposit boxes. So he had decided to come along to the safety deposit box vault with Liang Huan to investigate further.
The bank hired a number of experts that day to verify and recover the ditched items in the vault. In the safety deposit box vault, the robbers had opened seventeen of the boxes. Minus the one that was used to store the vacuum sealed corpse, there were sixteen left. Among those, there were thirteen boxes that were untouched by the robbers. Out of those thirteen, ten of them had been claimed, and three had no owner.
Also, the remaining three had been left in an entirely different situation. The robbers pulled out all the items from the boxes and scattered them all over the floor, which made the safety deposit box vault look very messy. The police detectives guessed that if the robbers had taken something, it would be from the three boxes. They might have thrown all the things from the three boxes onto the floor to confuse the police forces, confusing them on what had been taken!
At that very moment, the experts hired by the bank had verified the valuable items and began their recovery and repair task. As Liang Huan was familiar with the antique collection scene, Miao Ying sent him to gather more information and monitor the verification task carried out by the bank.
Among the variety of valuable items, there was jewellery, gold, and silver that were especially worth a lot of money. There were also many antique paintings and goods, branded bags and watches, and even a precious ancient traditional Chinese comic book. After the experts evaluated the goods, they declared none of the items were fake. They were all genuine!
"All of these items add up to about a few billion!" Liang Huan said as he looked at the three empty boxes. "I don't understand, the robber should've taken this stuff, and that would've been enough for the rest of their life. But…why didn't they take this stuff?"
"Unless," Zhao Yu creased his eyebrows and said, "unless the robbers took something even more valuable than all these items!"
"True! That's what I thought too! But, you see," Liang Huan pointed at one of the red jewellery boxes and said, "they even threw the diamond ring on the floor. How could anyone explain that? What is more expensive than a diamond ring? Plus, the diamond ring isn't that big. It wouldn't have caused any trouble if they brought that along."
Exactly. Zhao Yu thought it was weird too. The robbers had not even taken the diamond ring that was easy to carry and cost a fortune. What else could they have taken?
"Liang," Zhao Yu was looking at the three boxes when he said, "The amount of things on the table right now wouldn't be able to fit in one box. Am I right?"
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"True!" Liang Huan agreed. "It would need three boxes! But we don't know which items go into which box."
"The three boxes weren't next to each other," Zhao Yu pointed at the safety deposit boxes and said, "but they were near each other. Do you think they belonged to the same person?"
"Same person?" Liang Huan recalled. "The name registered for these boxes wasn't the same though! But, if the registration names were fake, we can't dismiss the possibility of them belonging to the same person!"
"Then…when were they last opened?" Zhao Yu asked again.
"We checked this before, but I can't remember! Hold on." Liang Huan unlocked his phone and retrieved the data.
"Oh yeah, what did the forensic department say?" Zhao Yu thought about something and asked, "Were there no fingerprints found on these items?"
"Yeah!" Liang Huan was still using his phone and only reacted two seconds later, "Hey, how did you know?"
"Hehe." Zhao Yu grinned and patted Liang Huan's shoulder. "It's okay. I understand why the owners of these boxes did not dare appear!"
"Huh? Why? Are they dead?" Liang Huan stopped pressing the buttons and asked curiously.
"Sigh! Liang!" Zhao Yu sighed, "This bank robbery case is getting very interesting! Let me tell you," he pointed at all the items on the table and said, "these items were all acquired illegally. They were all stolen!"
"Huh? Stolen?" Liang Huan raised his eyebrows. "What does it mean?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Zhao Yu told him confidently, "Quickly, get someone to check! These items are either reported missing or robbed! These three boxes were used to store stolen items! We ran into a 'black market merchant'!"
"What? What?" Liang Huan was confused. "What does 'black market merchant' mean?"
"On the streets, a 'black market merchant' buys stolen goods!" Zhao Yu explained, A 'black market merchant' can be categorized into three levels: low, mid, and high class. The low class does simple pickpocketing for phones and wallets; the mid class does wire transfers, or public property; and the high class does what's laying in front of us—priceless valuable items!"
"Oh…" Liang Huan scratched his head. "No wonder the owner has yet to make an appearance! These are all illegal items! Trading and stealing is not a normal crime. These are worth up to billions, and definitely have the possibility of being sentenced to life in prison!"
"Hehe, let me tell you another secret!" Zhao Yu was an expert in this. He told Liang Huan, "This is a large scale operation, definitely not by just one individual! This is one of the biggest black market merchants hidden in Qinshan! If we were to capture these people, that would be amazing. If we investigate following this route, we could arrest more than eighty percent of the robbers and burglars in Qinshan!"
"Ah! That…that's amazing!" Liang Huan's heart was pumping and he quickly took out his phone. " I…I need to call Team Leader Miao!"