01 Shaanxi Ancient Pagoda
If you want to be rich, first build roads, this word everyone understands, and another sentence "if you want to be rich, dig an ancient tomb, become a million households overnight", it is estimated that everyone is familiar with it, this is just to listen to it, but for some people, it is the most reasonable saying, and use a lifetime to practice it, the final outcome is of course not good, either lose your life, or eat a cell.
Wei Yougang is such a person, but the thief is digging a tower, his persistence, ability, and self-confidence in this regard can be said to be rare in the world, if it were not for infighting, I don't know how many ancient towers there would be, and he would be robbed by his high level and high intelligence. This article tells his bizarre and bizarre story.
Wei Yougang, a native of Yuncheng, Shanxi, was born in 1968. In the 90s of last century, the cultural relics of Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi and other places, crazy tomb robbery became a common practice, Wei Yougang's hometown was active in many tomb robbers, they even excavated ancient tombs, ancient pagodas and Buddha statues into a family industry, the formation of a lot of entangled tomb robbery gangs, many people even in addition to tomb robbery do not do anything else.
Wei Yougang and his family also participated in this "black production", he entered the industry at the age of 14, following his father and other people to engage in grave robbery criminal activities, at a young age, of course, he can only play hands, look at the wind, move tools and the like.
In the ninth year, Wei Yougang and his father and others came to "take care" of Binta in Shaanxi for the first time, but unfortunately they did not succeed, and his father was later imprisoned for this.
Wei Yougang
For thousands of years, tomb robbery and tower robbery are not allowed, and it is a criminal act, but its huge profits attract groups of people, not for hardships and violations of the law, for the sake of the past and the future. The danger of tomb robbery is well known to insiders, first, the risks in the process of excavation are extremely high, such as: poison gas, mud swamps, organs, landslides, infighting and mutual killing, etc., all kinds of accidents may be encountered at any time; second, after the incident, they are arrested and imprisoned, and even sentenced to capital punishment. Third, it seems that there will be various strange incidents, resulting in the tragic fate of thieves, which are mostly caused by psychological factors.
Therefore, in order to spread the risk, very few fathers and sons and brothers play together, lest the men in the family be destroyed and the family become unattended. The best partner in the industry, it is said that the nephew and uncle, should be a good color head of "life and salvation", and at the same time, the situation of black eating black can be avoided.
Wei Yougang was more intelligent, his father let him quit this business, sent him to learn auto repair, take a legitimate career, and his brother followed his father to "develop".
Wei Yougang honestly worked hard for many years of car maintenance and decoration, tired not to say, not to mention the money, watching the people engaged in the "black industry" in the village have all been issued, young him, who can accept this huge wealth gap, so, despite the persuasion of his family, he once again plunged into the "black industry" that he had previously engaged in, and from then on embarked on the "brilliant road" of life, no, it should be a road of no return in life.
Since Wei Yougang insisted on re-entering the "black industry", more importantly, the income risks in those years were indeed considerable, the family seemed to have forgotten the taboo in the industry, and his father personally taught him experience. After several years of training, Wei Yougang was also a little successful, so their father and son and others were thinking in their hearts about how to "make up" for the previous accidental defeat in Binta, and decided to explore the Binta Underground Palace again.
There is a reason why this gang is so optimistic about Binta.
Binxian Kaiyuan Temple Pagoda, also known as "Bin Pagoda", was built in the fifth year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1053), nearly a thousand years ago, and is a landmark building in Binxian (in 2018, the county was changed to Binzhou City). It is located in the Kaiyuan Square under the Ziwei Mountain in Binzhou City, and is a national key cultural relics protection unit; the tower is 47 meters high, the bottom floor diameter is 14 meters, and the side length is 5.6 meters.
Binta
There are many local legends about this tower. Some people say that it was personally supervised by Tang Dynasty Wei Chi Jingde, and the underground palace under the ancient pagoda had countless treasures. The local people are more willing to believe that there are big snakes, water monsters and the like in The town of Taxia, thus always protecting the peace of this ancient city.
Of course, thieves don't believe in these things, their logic is:
Many of the ancient pagodas built in various places are to enshrine and preserve the relics of high monks and masters, and even the relics of Shakyamuni Buddha, which are generally placed on the top of the pagoda or in the underground palace.
If the pagoda is built into the underground palace, the one who accompanies the relics into the underground palace will generally have gold coffins and silver rafters, offerings, and rare treasures, and the more incense-filled temples and more famous pagodas, the more and more valuable the offerings in the underground palace.
Kaiyuan Temple is quite famous in history, the incense is exuberant, and the Binta Pagoda is likely to have built an underground palace, and the treasures hidden in it are definitely only a lot more.
02 Two Exploration Ancient Towers
In 2001, Wei Yougang teamed up with others to visit Binta, including his father and brother, who rented a temporary house and opened a humble cake shop not far from Bintaxi;
Cake shops rarely buy goods on weekdays, but in the evening, some "goods" are continuously transported out, for a long time, nearby residents feel strange, plus, the noise from the cake shop at night is very disturbing, so the masses reported the cake shop.
The intention of Wei Yougang's father and son was obviously to use the shop to cover up, to dig a hole in the ground and steal the treasures in the underground palace under the tower; when they learned that they had been reported, Wei Yougang, who knew that it was not good, hastily filled in the robbery hole, restored it to its original state, and then slipped away, thus escaping the disaster; afterwards, it was learned that they dug a tunnel this time, and it was only less than 24 meters away from opening the underground palace, and the pagoda escaped this disaster.
After the wind sounded, Wei Yougang, who fled back to his hometown in Shanxi, did not give up the business of excavating ancient tombs, but was introduced by his brother, got acquainted with and worshiped a celebrity in the tomb robbery circle as a teacher, and was ready to do it a few more times.
In 2002, Wei Yougang and his apprentices cooperated to set their sights on the Dongguo ancient tomb group in Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province; unexpectedly, not long after, an accident occurred, Wei Yougang and several accomplices were arrested, his master escaped, and in December of that year, Wei Yougang was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined.
In 2004, Wei Yougang, who was still serving a prison sentence, was found to have been involved in another tomb robbery case, and was given another 7 years in prison and a fine, for a total sentence of 15 years. However, he was later commuted and released from prison in 2011.
During the period of serving his sentence, the arrogant Wei Yougang was very dissatisfied and resentful, not only did he not reflect on and reflect on his crimes, but he felt that in the two incidents of the crime, he was just a "helping" supporting role, did not get any benefits, but went to prison because of this, the loss was big, it was caused by his own lack of skill, the accomplice was too stupid, he felt that he was a person who did great things. In prison, he humbly asked his "peers" for advice, consulted, and communicated with each other. Even worship the teacher and improve your "skills".
After his release from prison, Wei Yougang continued to work diligently, and he was also a self-taught and a teacher, looking at feng shui, setting the direction, and other aspects; after years of tempering, Wei Yougang felt that he was already a master in the master, and it was time for him to play; Wei Yougang decided to do a big business, and at this time, he was no longer a supporting role in miscellaneous work, but at the level of a big brother, and the selection of criminal goals, organization and implementation, logistics support, stolen goods disposal, and interest distribution had to be decided by him.
Wei Yougang had never forgotten the Binta Underground Palace, and he felt that the failure of the previous two times to steal the underground palace was the shame of the old Wei family. He wants to visit Binta three times, so that yixue can shame himself, but his father and his own wishes, and at the same time give the Wei family a "right name".
03 Three Ancient Pagodas
Ten years have passed since the 2001 misstep, and the once sparsely populated Kaiyuan Temple Pagoda is already in the middle of The New Century Square, surrounded by traffic. Wei Mougang, who was scheming and skilled, thought that it was too difficult after stepping on the point, and did not dare to rush to do it, but turned his target to the Qingfan Temple Pagoda in the nearby Xingping City of Xianyang.
In July and August 2011, Wei Mougang and Zhao Xianhua pretended to be husband and wife, rented a private house in a small alley full of houses opposite the Qingfan Temple Pagoda, opened a shop during the day to sell burnt cakes, and began to dig a robbery hole at night. Zhao Xianhua is the sister of Wei Mougang's wife, that is, the eldest sister-in-law, and this kind of partnership is in line with the rules of the industry.
The house they rented was only separated from the Qingfan Pagoda by a road seven or eight meters wide, and through the window of the room, the Qingfan Pagoda could be clearly seen. No one knows that this seemingly simple and loving "couple" actually has a robber hole hidden in the house, and the location of the robber hole is under the bed, and they move the bed away when they dig at night, and restore it after digging. The group moved at the speed of ants digging a handbag of soil every day, and slowly dug towards the underground palace of the Qingfan Temple Pagoda.
Their robbery hole is first dug vertically down 8 meters, and then began to dig horizontal robbery hole, although the straight line distance is only 22 meters, but due to geological conditions and other reasons, the entire snake-shaped robbery hole dug is 35 meters.
After about 11 months of excavation, Wei Mougang and others succeeded, and stole a stone pagoda engraved with the words "Buddha Relic Pagoda", "Buddha Golden Bones and Relics", "Four Years of Great Song Dynasty" and other words from the Pagoda Underground Palace of Qingfan Temple, as well as 18 pieces/groups of silver Ashoka Pagoda, Golden Buddha Bones, Relics, Bronze Mirrors and other cultural relics.
After succeeding, Wei You just filled the vertical robbery hole with concrete, restored the ground to its original state, and then did not forget to brush it with red paint; sold some days of baked cakes, and then found a reason to withdraw; when checking out, he told the owner that the room returned to the tide, and they brushed it with red paint to not damp.
Once a robber's cave
At the end of 2011, while carefully digging the robbery hole of the Fan Temple Pagoda, Wei Mougang and Hu Mougang stepped on the point in advance and stared at the ancient pagoda underground palace of Huiche Temple in Weinan Pucheng, Shaanxi. Again, they resorted to the same trick, renting façade houses and operating snack bars near the south side of the tower. In the first month of the following year, they began to dig holes and excavate the ancient tower, and after the underground palace was opened, they found that the tower had been stolen and excavated, so they backfilled the vertical hole and left.
04 Record
In the following years, Wei Yougang and his gang repeated the same trick, and their "battle record" was:
A In September 2013, Wei Mougang and Hu Mou joined hands again to rent a façade room, operate a snack bar to "play cakes", and pirate the Taiping Temple Ancient Pagoda Underground Palace in the Baoji Qishan Experimental Small College; more than 20 days later, they opened the underground palace under the tower, but unfortunately, the underground palace has been stolen and excavated, and the gang returned disappointed.
B In November 2013, Wei Mougang and others set their sights on the Xianyang Xunyi Taita Underground Palace. This time it was a steamed bun shop that rented a house. In the excavation, Wei Mougang used the theodolite to locate and guide the direction of the excavation. A month later, the underground palace was opened, and Wei Mougang stole 24 pieces/groups of cultural relics such as the statue of Shakyamuni Nirvana, copper coffin, silver coffin, relics, glass bottles, and bronze Buddha statues from the Taita Underground Palace in Xunyi County. They sold it in packages for more than 7 million yuan.
First Class Cultural Relics
C In October 2014, Wei mou just shot the Ashoka Pagoda in Dai County, Shanxi. After about a month, the tunnel was hit to the foundation under the tower, but the underground palace could not be found, so he had to backfill the robbery hole and evacuate.
D At the beginning of 2015, Wei Mougang and others visited the Xianyang Binta Underground Palace four times, and this time he successfully stole 49 cultural relics (/group).
Below, introduce the theft process of Wei Yougang's Binta Underground Palace this time; the Kaiyuan Temple Pagoda is a barrier that Wei Yougang stole from the pagoda in his life, the reason why he said this, and then look down to understand.
A few years later, Wei Yougang stole the tower many times, it can be said that it was a second success, and it was all masterminded, planned, and implemented by him, at that time, his self-confidence was unprecedentedly inflated, and he felt that as long as he was willing, there was no Ancient Tower Underground Palace that wei you had just been unable to do.
He wanted to go to the most difficult and most heartfelt Binta Underground Palace, and only by taking it down could he get rid of his more than 20 years of knots, convince him of his almost crazy obsession, and make a name for himself in the "robbery world".
In order to implement the plan, as long as he has time, Wei Mougang will "visit" near the Pagoda of The New Century Temple in Binzhou, and he is waiting for an opportunity.
A few years later, Kaiyuan Square is even more lively, it is already the most prosperous and core area of Binzhou City, and the office buildings of many government agencies and units in Binzhou City stand diagonally opposite the square in turn; on several small streets around, supermarkets and shops are connected.
The more dangerous the place, the safer it is, Wei Mougang feels that the time is ripe, he wants 4 to explore Binta.
05 Four Ancient Pagodas
At the beginning of 2015, he and gang members Liu Mouzhong, Yan Mouqiang and others went to the area around Binta four times to choose a suitable excavation site, and even invited Master Dong Zhongjie to help, and finally selected a set of façade rooms located on the east side of the square and in the courtyard of the medicinal materials company.
Why did Wei Yougang choose this house? There are three reasons for this:
First, this house does not face the street, in the back row of the frontage storefront, and the square is only separated by a road tens of meters wide. From this house, you can not only see the gate of the courtyard, but also see the Binta pagoda more than 200 meters away, which is very convenient to perceive the changes in the surrounding situation. Also, surrounded by small shops, it is more conducive to cover, it is estimated that no one will believe that in such a lively place, someone will dare to dig tunnels to steal treasures.
Second, this house has no basement, suitable for digging holes, this is particularly critical, others rent more is to hope to have a basement, Wei You just rented but specially selected no basement.
Third, before Wei You just rented the house, he specially invited Master Dong Zhongjie to the scene to see, and felt that although the distance was far away, he had the two favorable conditions in front of him, which was really rare, and there was no more suitable place in the surrounding area.
Master Dong is also very optimistic about this project, took the initiative to pay money into a share, and after digging out the cultural relics, you can divide the money.
All along, Wei Yougang attaches great importance to the choice of gang members, focusing on the selection of prison friends he met during his sentence, or relatives in the same village, to ensure that under the common interests, it is not easy to have infighting due to the problem of sharing the stolen goods.
This move against Binta is of great significance to Wei Yougang, and he can only succeed, not fail. Wei Yougang, who was already a veteran, in addition to asking the master to go out to confirm the feasibility of the excavation site, also asked the master to give everyone who planned to participate in the excavation of the Binta Underground Palace, measured the birthday of the eight characters, the master thought that it was in line with the great shun and dali, and he let the gang work together. Of course, there are his former prison friend Yan Qiang and his old partner's eldest sister-in-law Zhao Hua.
Renting a house, Yan Qiang found someone to decorate, Zhao Hua came forward to apply for a business license, and also called Li Mou from his hometown to come over as a chef, and also recruited a few timid, honest, and poor waiters in the local area, which was also needed for cover.
The hotel opened at the end of April 2015, named "Chuanxiang Restaurant", the hotel is usually managed by Zhao Hua, Yan Qiang is responsible for procurement.
After the hotel opened, it was indeed a normal business during the day. After 9:30 p.m., the chefs and waiters leave work and rest in another rental house. After 22:00, the shops around the hotel were basically empty, and wei you just began to do "serious things".
Under the command of Wei Yougang, the accomplices entered the working state in an orderly manner, first digging a vertical pit more than 7 meters deep, then using the theodolite to locate, and then digging a horizontal hole in the direction of the Binta Underground Palace.
They packed the excavated soil in the hole, packed it in woven bags, dragged it under the vertical hole, and hoisted the dirt bag up with a portable hoist.
They worked almost every day until about 4 a.m., after finishing work, with a large brick, the vertical hole was covered, and a table was set on the floor tile, and the table was placed on the waiter's tableware and other bits and pieces, and the appearance could not be seen at all, and at the same time, the store was cleaned up, leaving no trace of movement. Then, the car pulled the soil away, fell into an inconspicuous ditch by the Jing River outside the city, and finally quietly went back to the rental house to sleep.
Sneaky digging is not easy, digging tunnels took more than 6 months.
Once, due to a mistake to distort a few meters, the depth is also deviated from the expected data, they are in the cave, can clearly hear the sound of people dancing square dance on the ground, startled them, quickly adjust the direction of excavation, at the same time, fill in the part of the cave that was crooked.
Robbery hole
At first, the chef and waiters did not know that Wei Yougang and others were digging holes in the middle of the night. Later, through some suspicious signs, the clerks gradually guessed something, but they all chose silence. Wei Yougang also knew that he had done something so big and so long that it was impossible not to expose his feet at all, so he sent some extra benefits to the clerks from time to time, and the clerks pretended not to know anything.
After 6 months of uninterrupted excavation, Wei Yougang finally opened the Binta Underground Palace after they opened a 280-meter-long robbery hole, the time was already October; after a thousand years of underground palace, soaked with a large amount of groundwater, Wei You just bought a water pump, it took a day to drain the water inside the underground palace.
The underground palace that has been thinking about it for decades finally appeared in front of Wei Yougang's eyes, the square underground palace is not large, about 1.5 meters long and 1.3 meters wide, the palace wall is brick, one of which has a bow-shaped palace gate 70 centimeters wide, and the two in front of the palace gate are also protected by stone fences.
This time, Wei Yougang was lucky, the entire underground palace was intact, all the treasures were intact, a period of searching, but it did not take much time, they stole the sarcophagus, gold coffin, silver coffin, copper coffin, gilded coffin, bronze mirror, suspected relics, a variety of Buddha statues, porcelain, silverware and other 49 pieces (sets) of cultural relics, but they were one hundred and one, but one object forgot to take it together, it may also be that it is heavy and worthless.
06 Selling stolen goods
After Wei Yougang got the cultural relics, he contacted Zhang Moumin in Henan through Zhang Mouxi in Linfen City, and he sent photos of the cultural relics to Zhang Moumin and asked him to help sell the cultural relics. Middleman Zhang Moumin introduced another cultural relics dealer Wang Ping to Wei Yougang, and Wang Ping, who knew the goods, happily gave Wei Yougang a deposit of 300,000 yuan, and Wei Yougang directly transferred 200,000 yuan of it to Zhang Moumin as a benefit fee.
Subsequently, Wang Ping threw his hand to his fellow Chinese man Tang Chun, who sold the cultural relics to the larger cultural relics dealers Tan Wei and Liu Yuan for 5.8 million yuan.
In November 2016, Tan Wei and Liu Yuan sold to Zhejiang boss Ruan Ping for 23 million yuan, and the rich man Ruan Ping believed in Buddhism and was very religious.
cultural relic
At that time, the secret sale of cultural relics, buyers are silently abide by the unspoken rule of "do not ask the way"; out of careful consideration, Ruan Ping took a piece of porcelain fragment from this batch of cultural relics, and specially went to Shanghai to find an appraisal agency for testing, the results showed that the porcelain dating year was the Northern Song Dynasty, so Ruan Ping assured that this batch of Buddhist cultural relics was placed at home to be offered, praying for peace and happiness and great wealth.
At the same time, in order to cover people's eyes, Tan Wei and Liu Yuan issued a fake IOU of 23 million yuan to Ruan Ping, stating that they used ancestral cultural relics as collateral, and after maturity, if Tan and Liu could not return the loan, the cultural relics would belong to Ruan Ping to pay off the debt.
Wei Yougang, who is very conceited, believes that his many pirates and transactions have been done seamlessly, and there will be absolutely no accidents, so with money, he did not flee and hide, but used the stolen money to build a villa in his hometown, bought a luxury car, and lived a leisurely life.
What is even more exaggerated is that Wei Yougang feels that he can do bigger and better in terms of stealing and digging, and make more black money, so he opened a company in Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, as a cover, one is to whitewash his own money history; the other is to use this as a base to better do a bigger "business".
Wei Yougang company has a basement, very large, which is full of more than 100 pieces of large and small grave digging, tower robbery tools, walkie-talkies, winches, blowers, homemade tracks, chainsaws, lights, bulldozers, etc., it can be said that everything can be formed into an engineering team. What is more eye-catching is that there are also a number of lathes, which can be processed and made according to the needs of "work"; according to Wei Yougang himself, his improved Luoyang shovel has become the standard of people in the same road for a while.
Grave robbery tools at your disposal
At the same time, Wei Yougang did not forget to study in the pleasure of enjoying the sudden wealth, and continued to improve his professional level, he collected more books and materials about ancient tombs and ancient towers, studied carefully, and found and accumulated more suitable alternative targets for crime.
Reading this, everyone must have a question, why wei Yougang and his gang have a special love for Guta?
This question actually shows that Wei Yougang is bold and careful, and it is different. Because he is very clear, tomb robbery activities have been in all dynasties, to modern times, has long been 10 tombs 9 empty, in addition to those heavily guarded imperial tombs, there are very few valuable tombs left, and the ancient tower is different, because it is mostly built on the land boundary with a large population, coupled with the temple companionship, someone guarded, the possibility of theft in history is very small. Therefore, the ancient tower has become the main target of Wei Yougang's theft, but he will certainly not let go easily with a suitable ancient tomb.
From 2016 to the end of 2017, Wei Yougang conspired with people to excavate the ancient tomb group (a municipal cultural relics protection unit) in Dongguo Village, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province. In fact, in 2002, Wei Yougang was arrested and imprisoned and sentenced to 8 years when he stole the tomb group; 14 years later, Wei Yougang, who was already a celebrity in the tower (tomb) world, did not believe in evil, did not accept defeat, and came to the tomb group again. Not long after, his brother also died when he was robbing the tomb due to the collapse of the robbery cave.
Due to successive accidents, delaying Wei Yougang's crazy excavation of the ancient tomb group in Dongguo Village, the death of the two did not dispel his enthusiasm for continuing to rob the tomb, he was just looking for and designing a more reliable method of robbery, he did not believe that the tomb group that was very optimistic would find nothing, otherwise he could not help but lose the two lives in vain.
However, Heaven is going to take him and give him no more chances.
07 Solving the case
Often walking by the river, where there are not wet feet; to be unknown to people, unless they have nothing to do; not to mention the Wei Yougang who committed a terrible crime.
At the end of 2017, the Xianyang Criminal Police Detachment received a report that the cultural relics of the Pagoda Underground Palace of Kaiyuan Temple in Binxian County had been excavated by a group of tomb robbers led by Wei Yougang in 2015.
After receiving the report, the police vaguely felt that this matter was not simple, first, the public security organs and cultural relics departments had not discovered the case before, and whether the information provided by the reporter was true and reliable needed to be investigated; second, whether there was a underground palace under the ancient tower and whether there were cultural relics inside, everyone was not clear.
In charge of this case is Ma Ying, a deputy director from the science class who is in charge of criminal investigation work, and is known as the "Detective of Bin County". The investigators learned from feedback from all sides that Wei You, a Shanxi native, had a previous conviction of excavating ancient tombs and selling cultural relics on many occasions, and had the experience of serving a prison sentence.
The investigators quickly found the location of the "Chuanxiang Restaurant" that was 3 years ago, without a basement, but the store had become a remedial center by then; the careful investigators, peeling off the rubber on the floor, knocked on every tile here, and carefully analyzed it; finally, traces of filled holes were found in the northeast corner of the house.
The investigators found from the industrial and commercial registration data of that year that the registrant was Zhao Hua, and further found out that Zhao Hua was Wei Yougang's eldest sister-in-law, thus corroborating the credibility of the clues reported. At this point, it can be preliminarily determined that the criminal gang headed by Wei Mougang has stolen the Binta Underground Palace.
The case of excavating ancient tombs and underground palaces has a strong concealment compared with other types of cases, and many tomb robbery cases have often passed several years when they are discovered by the police. The discovery of the excavation case was either infighting between the pirate gangs and someone reported and exposed, or it was discovered by the police in the process of selling cultural relics. Otherwise, no one knows. The informant of the Binta Underground Palace theft case should be an insider of Wei Yougang's gang.
On January 16, 2018, the Binta theft and excavation case was officially filed and reported layer by layer, and the "1.16" excavation of the ancient pagoda underground palace case became the No. 09 major case supervised by the ministry that year.
On January 20, 2018, Ma Ying braved the severe cold and led the special case team to Shanxi to carry out an investigation.
Soon, Yan Qiang, who was running a small restaurant in Changzhi City, Shanxi Province, entered the investigator's sight, Yan Qiang had served a sentence in Jincheng Prison in Shanxi Province, for a long time, he and Wei Yougang had just been in close contact, and during the time when the Binta Underground Palace was stolen, Yan Qiang, a foreigner, repeatedly went online in an Internet café near Binzhou Kaiyuan Square, and was suspected of committing a major crime.
At the same time, he also learned that Wei Yougang was still in Yuncheng, Shanxi, and opened a company.
The special case team quickly made arrangements, and a group of people and horses rushed to Changzhi City overnight to secretly arrest Yan Qiang; Ma Ying led another group of people and horses to Yuncheng to arrest Wei Yougang.
After Yan Qiang was arrested, he quickly admitted that he, along with Wei Yougang, had gathered a group of people to steal cultural relics from the Binta Underground Palace.
On the 21st, Wei Mougang, who finished playing badminton, as soon as he entered the company, he was caught by the police who had been squatting for a long time.
Investigators first came to the company's basement to find the whereabouts of cultural relics, and found that this is not only the storage place for the tools of the tower robber gang, but also the production workshop of the pirate excavation tools, professional surveying and mapping tools, dividers, theodolites, ventilators, pumps, shovels and other equipment are readily available, and there are a large number of homemade tools that even the investigators have never heard of.
Subsequently, the investigators searched Wei Mougang's company and residence and found more than 30 books on the structure, style characteristics and feng shui of various dynasties, several of which were turned over and the pages were rolled up. According to Wei Mougang's confession, these books are theoretical books that help him determine whether there is an underground palace at the bottom of the tower and how to plan the route of theft.
Grave Robber Notes
Wei Yougang's safe is also placed in 2 thick notebooks, full of history, customs, ancient tomb shapes, funeral habits, and ancient tower knowledge, etc., which also has a large number of his own experience and insights from the tower robbery, a lot of white paper, but also with red and blue different colors marked the location of the ancient tower, the record is detailed and meticulous, perhaps, these towers are Wei Yougang's next crime target.
In the following days, 6 more suspects were quickly arrested. Under strong pressure, the criminal suspects successively confessed the criminal facts of the theft of cultural relics of Binta.
Wei Yougang was more cunning, and when he was first arrested, he only said that he had sold the stolen cultural relics to a cultural relics dealer, he only knew that this person was from Henan, named Zhang Min, and did not know the specific identity of this person and the subsequent flow of cultural relics.
The investigators quickly locked zhang min's residence and real identity in Shanxi, and rushed to Linfen City to carry out the arrest and recovery of cultural relics, but it was still one step late, Zhang Min learned that Wei You had just been arrested, quickly fled, and the clues of cultural relics were interrupted.
Later, the special case team personnel repeatedly did work on Wei Yougang, more importantly, his accomplices including his nephew were also arrested, to this point, Wei Yougang knew that he did not confess, others will also confess to him, in order to alleviate the punishment, he can only be like a bamboo tube pouring beans all recruited, including his past years of tower robbery, tomb robbery activities, as well as he knows about the theft of others; this confession, let all the case-handling personnel surprised a lot, did not expect that Wei Yougang is a shocking thief, stole 6 towers and 1 tomb in 5 years, a case led to 6 cases, So I made a joint case.
Identify the scene
After combing and verifying, among the 6 ancient pagodas and 1 ancient tomb that were stolen, there were 6 national key cultural relics protection units, 1 municipal cultural relics protection unit, and 95 stolen cultural relics (groups). Next, the recovery of cultural relics became the central task of the task force.
thereinto:
A statue of Shakyamuni Nirvana unearthed at the Xunyi Taita Underground Palace eventually flowed into the hands of the Jinhua people in Zhejiang, who later realized that the police were investigating the matter, and quickly pushed the boat along the water and donated the cultural relics to the local museum; however, the donation of the cultural relics involved in the case was invalid, and the museum eventually returned the cultural relics to Shaanxi.
Also, Ruan Ping, a buyer from Hangzhou, a Zhejiang resident, heard the wind and ran to Japan to hide. After continuous communication and persuasion by the special case team personnel, on October 11, 2018, Ruan Binh returned to China and surrendered himself, and took the initiative to hand over 49 Pieces of Binta Cultural Relics he purchased.
After a total of 14 months of efforts by the special case team, 36 suspects have been arrested, and all 95 stolen cultural relics involved in the three ancient towers have finally been recovered. The "1.16" gang series of excavations of ancient pagoda underground palaces and ancient tombs was successfully solved.
These 95 cultural relics have been appraised by experts, including: 4 first-class cultural relics, 5 second-class cultural relics, 29 third-class cultural relics, and the remaining 57 are general cultural relics.
Relic
08 Go down to the dungeon again
After the arrest and recovery work is completed, the investigators must enter the scene of the dungeon and extract the evidence in order to form a complete chain of criminal evidence; theoretically, it is possible to enter the dungeon from the ancient gate built in ancient times, if this is done, it will not only require a lot of ground, but also have the potential damage to the thousand-year-old tower. Therefore, it is better to enter from the original thief cave of Wei Yougang.
The case-handling personnel first dug the vertical hole that had been filled, and then used a variety of schemes such as robots and endoscopic exploration to test into the underground palace, but it was not possible, or the personnel had to go down personally, and Zhang Xinquan, who was thin and young and capable in the special case team, took the initiative to ask for help.
At this time, it has been 3 years since the binta was stolen, the situation in the cave is unpredictable, after 24 hours of ventilation in the cave, Zhang Xinquan tied the safety rope and camera recorder, wore a hard hat and a searchlight, and slowly descended to the underground robbery cave nearly 8 meters deep. After landing on the ground, a long, regular arched passage appeared in front of his eyes, 50 centimeters wide and 70 centimeters high, leading straight to the underground palace under the Bin Pagoda.
In such a small space, Zhang Xinquan could only crawl forward, climbing tens of meters, and the laser rangefinder in his hand showed that there was a collapse more than 10 meters ahead, and the passage was blocked. At this time, the gas detector carried by Zhang Xinquan began to "nourish" the sound, warning that the gas content in the cave was seriously exceeded and there was a risk of explosion, so everyone decided to let it withdraw quickly, in fact, more worried about the 280-meter channel that had been abandoned for nearly 3 years, it may collapse at any time.
This road is not feasible, so I have to find another way.
On the Kaiyuan Square, the police and cultural relics department personnel chose a suitable position close to the tower between the starting point of the robbery cave and the underground palace, drilled a hole downwards, hit more than 7 meters deep, and finally penetrated the original robbery hole.
Diagram
At 4:00 p.m. on April 2, 2019, the investigators finally passed through the robbery cave and entered the ancient pagoda underground palace of Binzhou Kaiyuan Temple. The water in the underground palace is serious and the air is thin. When the police inspected the underground palace, they also accidentally found a stele of the object that the thieves could not remove, which was a stone sculpture of 55×44×9 cm, which detailed the reason for the construction of the pagoda and the list of items in the underground palace: "A branch of Shakya Buddha's tooth, a bottle of Shakya Buddha's relic, a bottle of Dingguang Buddha's relic, a bottle of Guanyin Bodhisattva's relic, two golden coffins, two golden coffins, three silver coffins of sixty-four two, a copper coffin of fifty pounds, an iron coffin of ninety pounds, a sarcophagus, and a sacrifice of twenty-eighty two", after inventory and comparison, the total number of cultural relics was 49 (group). This quantity and category are consistent with what Wei You just explained and recovered, confirming the recovery of all the cultural relics of Binta.
Monument to the Object
Then, the police also conducted on-site investigation and evidence collection of several other stolen towers, and in the process of on-site investigation and evidence collection of the ancient pagoda underground palace of Xingping Qingfan Temple, there were comrades who fainted due to lack of oxygen, which showed the great danger of the lower underground palace.
09 Ending
In April 2020, the 23 suspects in the "1.16" series of robbery excavations of the Ancient Pagoda Underground Palace and ancient tombs were properly tried, and they were all self-inflicted and deserved. Among them, 15 people participated in the excavation of the ancient pagoda underground palace and ancient tombs, and 8 people were sold off the line by Wei Yougang and others.
Wei Mougang was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment and fined 500,000 yuan, which was a judgment based on the objective clues of the confession after his return to the case and the reporting and exposing the criminal clues of Li Mou and others who had illegally excavated the Taiping Xingguo Temple Pagoda (a key cultural protection unit) in Shanxi Yuncheng.
The remaining 22 were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 2 to 14 years and fined. Zhao Xianhua was on the run, and it should be sooner or later that he was caught.
The story is at this point, it is the end, Wei You just said when he was tried: "I have been interested in cultural relics since I was a child, I have bought many books to study professional knowledge, looking back on these things I have experienced, I am in awe of the lack of cultural relics, I have never really read cultural relics."
Wei Yougang, who regretted it late, this life is finished, life must have a goal, it needs to work hard, but the goal is crooked or reversed, the harder you work, the more you fail, and even the abyss; Wei Yougang is such a person, all the way to the black, sad, shameful, hateful, pitiful!
Finally, may the goal of the readers be correct, bright, the harder you work, the more successful, and the happier you are.
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Note: The information in this article comes from the public reports of major media, and if there is invasion, it must be deleted, and the characters in the text are pseudonyms.