Police officer Chen Shu

Chapter 772 Raising an Informant Across Provinces
At night, an ordinary Santana sedan blended into the darkness, appearing slightly hazy under the dim streetlights.

"License plate." Chen Shu sat in the driver's seat, his voice calm as still water.

"Zheng Jie doesn't own any vehicles. Hmm, neither does Zheng Amei." The blond-haired man tapped rapidly on his police terminal without looking up, his tone carrying a hint of pride.

"What about traffic violation records?" Chen Shu added a search term.

Jiang Hai's eyes lit up. He thought this was a brilliant little investigative method. It was a pity that he didn't have any paper and pen to record it. Otherwise, he would definitely have put the spirit of the police academy's top student to good use.

"Uh..." Huang Mao paused. He could think of checking the vehicles registered under the suspect's name, but he hadn't really thought of going through all the other party's traffic violation records.

After searching for a while in the police terminal's application menu for the software entry point, Huang Mao finally clicked on the right place and said, "I have a driver's license, but there are no penalty records or associated cars."

"Hmm," Chen Shu recalled what happened in the middle of the night a few days ago.

That day, when Zheng Jie and another man were extorting money from Zhu Yiba and Chen Chuan, they followed them into the underground parking lot of the hotel they were staying in, driving a Mazda sedan.

Therefore, the hotel's surveillance video must contain the record of that time, which can be used to trace their license plate number, and then trace their whereabouts through the traffic police's vehicle tracking system, thereby narrowing down the search area.

Chen Shu instructed Huang Mao to contact Ma Rongcheng, who was waiting at the brigade, and to go to the hotel to retrieve the license plate of the vehicle Zheng Jie had driven that night.

About an hour later, Ma Rongcheng successfully obtained the license plate and then sent back the driving trajectory of the Mazda and high-definition photos taken by the checkpoint via WeChat.

Zheng Jie and his accomplices, wearing baseball caps, were clearly photographed.

“The last place they were seen was on Laifu Road. That’s a commercial street, so it will take a lot of time to find them. Now that Zheng Amei has been arrested, and time is so tight, I’m afraid that if there’s any delay, they might run away once they can’t contact Zheng Amei.” Huang Mao glanced at his phone, then turned the screen upside down and handed it to Chen Shu.

Chen Shu glanced at his phone. On the screen, Zheng Jie was still driving that old black Mazda sedan, with a young man wearing a baseball cap sitting next to him.

Chen Shu remained calm. Since he could determine the general area, he wasn't afraid of not being able to find the person.

He gestured a large rectangle with his hands and said, "Chen Chuan, I remember your criminal investigation department has a machine for searching for specific cell phone signals on-site, right? Hmm, it's a pretty big metal box. You put on headphones, carry it, and you can go out on the street to find your cell phone."

When Chen Shu said he was going to Myanmar to rescue people, Chen Chuan secretly took this mobile device, which could search for specific cell phone signals at close range, with him on a trip abroad.

Although it's equipment that was phased out by the company, it's genuinely convenient for searching for mobile phones.

The metal box is actually a radio transmitter. It works by taking advantage of its high local power and disguising itself as a base station to bypass the operator's official base station and receive specific mobile phone signals.

The technology isn't particularly advanced, and it was widely used for fraud in the past, such as the massive SMS scams that used this technology to send out mass messages.

At its peak, the suspect only needed one person, carrying a large backpack containing fake base stations, to wander the streets and collect two thousand yuan an hour.

Note that this is for one hour.

Why is it calculated by the hour?
It's not just about highlighting the high salary of two thousand yuan per hour; more importantly, you might get arrested by the police in the second hour. However, in the first year after this technology came out, it really did allow those scumbags who made a fortune through shady dealings and scams.

There's nothing that can be done about it; that's just how police investigations are. Similar to later online lending, P2P lending, and virtual currencies, before the Chinese government could react and take action, they were indeed one of the ways for people at the bottom of society to rise up.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Chen Chuan picked his nose, seemingly unconcerned, and said, "It's an old technology from over ten years ago. It only works well for 2G network phones, and it's long been obsolete. But no matter what, it still needs formal approval before it can be used."

As he spoke, he turned his head with some difficulty, glanced at the blond-haired man sitting obediently in the back row, and said rudely, "The blond-haired man probably doesn't have this authority. Why don't we go back to our unit first, fill out an application report, and go through the procedures?"

Such high-tech investigative methods generally require approval from the leaders of the brigade or detachment, as well as from the notoriously strict legal officers who oversee the process for the leaders.

After completing the above procedures, you still need to personally go to the duty leader of the Municipal Bureau, explain the situation, and obtain their consent. This process takes at least a considerable amount of time.

Sitting in the driver's seat, Chen Shu tapped his knuckles on the steering wheel and slowly said, "It's okay, I have the guy in the baseball cap's WeChat."

At the time, in the hotel's underground parking lot, Chen Shu, following his usual mindset of not letting these shady characters make a wasted trip, insisted on adding the man wearing a baseball cap on WeChat and then transferred several hundred yuan to him.

Chen Shu's actions were not out of fear of these petty criminals, but rather because spending a few hundred yuan to eliminate any unnecessary troubles that might occur during their vacation in Yunnan Province was a worthwhile deal.

After all, thieves never leave empty-handed; letting them take a small amount of money will make them quieter.

Then there are those who walk the line between crime and criminality, who are the police's favorite source of leads. That's how informants are found; they have to be kept around.

In police investigations, bribing informants is the most convenient method, bar none.

Tip fees can be reimbursed by the unit. The standard varies from year to year depending on supply and demand, but overall it is relatively high.

For minor offenses like drug use, one person can be reimbursed 1,000 yuan; for major offenses like gun-related cases, the minimum reimbursement is 30,000 yuan, with no upper limit.

Chen Shu was drawn to the fact that he was from Yunnan Province.

In places like this, drug-related crimes are far more prevalent than in other parts of China. Even if a little bit slips through their fingers, it's still a huge surplus.

In recent years, Dongzhou City has intensified its anti-drug efforts, the most direct result of which is that the price of heroin has soared to 8000 yuan, and it is still in short supply.

From another perspective, scarcity drives up value. The decrease in the quantity of goods indicates a gradual reduction in the number of people engaged in this trade, making it impossible for the Dongzhou police to meet their quotas.

Out of desperation, some police officers have traveled to other cities or even provinces to arrest drug users.

It's important to understand that while drug use may sound like a serious crime, it's actually only an administrative violation, similar to people getting into fights, engaging in prostitution, or gambling while drunk.

In comparison, it's not surprising that Chen Shu, who was once the top crackdown officer in the branch office, subconsciously kept an informant across provinces for emergencies.

(End of this chapter)