When he first started working as a criminal investigator, Lam worked in the Tsim Sha Tsui Sub-district, which is adjacent to Victoria Harbour, which is a "oil and water area" where underworld forces gather, and he is very excited to do a big job in the chaotic environment. He also gradually went from being a newcomer to criminal investigation to an official agent here. He still likes to hang out in Tsim Sha Tsui today, observing pedestrians, looking at their clothes and expressions, judging how their personalities are, whether they are suspicious or not, and retiring from the army for many years has not gotten rid of this habit.
During the day, the streets around Victoria Harbour are crowded with tourists who come to Hong Kong to buy, and at night they are hung with neon signs of different colors, and the picture of Hong Kong has almost never changed. It's just that the gangster forces that once gathered here are no longer the ancient puzzle boys who shouted and killed in the past, and some gangs have also collapsed with the changes of the times, and they have gone underground and evaded the police in a more shrewd way. Lin Jianqiang said that if he wants to work in OJi, he must be an Internet expert.
The story of the police officers who belonged to Hong Kong is still playing out.
Text | Tu Yuqing
Edit | Liu Bin
Photography | Yin Xiyuan
undercover
Mr Lam, 64, knows most of Hong Kong's gangster strongholds, such as minibuses with gang logos in Mong Kok, nightclub businesses hidden in buildings, or old-fashioned mansions where the nearby "first floor and one phoenix" lives — taking a narrow elevator of about 1 square meter upstairs, each unit with colorful neon lights hanging outside the door, and each unit in the building is usually divided into 8 rooms, inhabited by different sex workers.
Like a tour guide who has walked through tourist attractions countless times, Lin Jianqiang is familiar with such places and can even find the best observation angle somewhere on the street. He walked quickly, spoke at the same speed, and spoke with some street rage, making people think that the white hair was deliberately dyed, like the underworld characters in the movie.
As an O-Secretary Inspector, Lam is one of the policemen who knows the footprints of Hong Kong gangsters best.
If you are a Fan of Hong Kong dramas, you will quickly understand what kind of place O Ji is. It is the highest-level criminal investigation arm of the Hong Kong Police Force, the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau, known to Hong Kongers as the O's, and specializes in cracking down on extremely complex and serious criminal cases. This department was born in the 80s, when the underworld was most rampant in Hong Kong, and dealing with the underworld was their daily work. You can often see such a picture in Hong Kong dramas, O Kee police officers go to sweep up the gang stronghold, before the operation begins, they hide in the sealed van waiting for instructions.
Lam Kin Keung joined O Kee at the time of Hong Kong's return to The Motherland, and the Hong Kong Police Force was officially changed from the "Royal Hong Kong Police Force" during the British Rule period to the "Hong Kong Police Force", and he witnessed the turning point of Hong Kong as Inspector O.
O's never lacks the great cases of the century. Lin Jianqiang's first case into the O's record was the "Changsheng Mega Pirate Murder Case", also known as the largest sea robbery and murder case in New China. The 23 crew members on board were collectively killed in the South China Sea, and the freighter mysteriously disappeared.
Another case that was taken on that year was committed by Zhang Ziqiang, a bandit who had kidnapped Li Zeju, when Zhang Ziqiang was smuggling 800 kilograms of explosives into Hong Kong, preparing to blow up Hong Kong Stanley Prison and save his brother Ye Jihuan.
There are too many stories related to O's record circulating, they entered the gang, lurked for many years, and the legend of the police bandits who destroyed the gang forces in one fell swoop is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but Lin Jianqiang said, "Undercover is indeed a common thing, but the plot is not so tortuous."
He once went undercover as a gangster big brother, played the role of the gangster is his own script, usually wear a suit and tie, wear a watch and a gold ring, the most important thing is to speak black words -
At that time, the target person was planning to find "Nine Fourth Friends" (black words: four people) to rob together, Lin Jianqiang was appointed by an informant as an "old shed" (friend), introduced to the target person, the other party claimed to have a "paparazzi" (pistol), to cooperate to find the "old lining" (the object of the robbery), to him "Lao Kasa" (robbery). So a group of people went to the place where they were going to "step on the line" (survey the environment) in advance, and found some "awake" (clever) and "enough ginger" (courageous) comrades.
Every night, Lin Jianqiang has to think back to what he has done as a gangster big brother, and remember his identity background. But the biggest pressure comes from meeting acquaintances. Hong Kong is a small place and densely populated, afraid that someone will see him on the street, greeting him with a greeting of "where have you been on an errand lately", "Although I will not be assassinated, the whole operation will be abandoned."
boundary
Agent O is plainclothes, they usually do not need to wear a uniform to patrol the streets, rather than waiting for the incident to go to the scene to handle the case, it is more important to have intelligence. If he meets Lin Zhiqiang in a tea restaurant, he is likely to be speaking to the people around him in jianghu dialect that normal people can't understand at all, which is a code word for communicating with the underworld, and this skill must also be used when communicating with informants.
Lin Jianqiang often asked informants to drink morning tea to understand what new trends were in the operation of various gangs, and informants would break the news to the police in order to avenge or reduce their sentences. But morality is the survival law of the underworld, informants will also feel uneasy when leaking information to the police, Lin Jianqiang often uses some inducements, or verbal appeasement, "let him feel that what he is doing is a meaningful thing, after doing it for a long time, some informants will even think of themselves as policemen."
These informants are the tentacles of O's detectives, they go deep into the gangs of the underworld, and Lin Jianqiang relies on them to solve many cases in his career. The relationship between the police and the informant is delicate, both to win each other over and to draw a line. Lin Jianqiang always reminded himself to be black and white, "A soldier is a soldier, a thief is a thief, and it is impossible to be a true friend."
One of Lin Jianqiang's subordinates could not be distinguished. During his undercover period, he had already collected evidence of a crime committed by a triad gang, but he was shaken the night before he started to arrest people, and he asked Lin Jianqiang, "Can you not arrest him on this day, that day is his birthday, I think he is so miserable." Lin Jianqiang criticized him fiercely, "When you go undercover, you should put your personal feelings aside, and arresting him is your first task as a policeman."
The boundaries have been there since Lin Jianqiang was a police officer. He entered the industry when the Independent Commission Against Corruption was established, when corruption in the police circles was rife, many police officers colluded with triad forces, and the British government in Hong Kong was setting off an anti-corruption storm.
Lin Jianqiang first saw the body was 21 years old, an elderly man living alone hanging himself in the subdivided house where he lived, and a few days later his son found himself and called the police, he untied the old man from the rope and sent him to the public morgue. After returning home that day, Lin Jianqiang washed his clothes many times and took a bath for a long time, "There is a smell on the dead man's body, no matter how many times he washes it, this smell is always there."
In the process of handling the case, Lin Jianqiang tried to show calm and professionalism. He has his own training style, wearing a police uniform and a police hat every day is a ritual, and he cannot feel afraid when handling a case, cannot establish a personal relationship with the undercover gang, and cannot accept any form of bribery. He described the feelings of fear, hesitation, and loneliness as "the act of the weak," and in his view, the police could not show cowardice.
He always remembers playing the game of "pointing at soldiers" with his companions when he was a child, "pointing at soldiers, pointing at soldiers, and who is pointing to be a big soldier?" Pointing at the thief, pointing at who is the big thief?" Ordinary people like to be "big thieves", hide everywhere, and enjoy the fun of escaping the pursuit of "big soldiers", but Lin Jianqiang only likes to be a "big soldier", and the joy of trying hard to catch the "big thief" is irreplaceable.
psychological warfare
Before becoming Inspector O, Lam worked for 6 years in the West Kowloon Region's Major Crimes Unit, where he accumulated mature forensic skills.
Late on the night of May 1, 1992, Chen Wanhua, a 19-year-old former singing girl, was raped and killed in her subdivided room, her neck was almost cut off, the wound was 15 centimeters long, and the girl died with a business card in her hand. Due to the long time the body was left there, the body was decomposed when it was found, and the house emitted a sour smell, and it was impossible to find the killer by taking the DNA in the body.
Lin Jianqiang, the main person in charge of the case, found the accompaniment sister who last contacted Chen Wanhua, and learned that before the crime, a group of cleaning company guys came out with them to play and sent the deceased home together. Employees of the cleaning company immediately became the object of suspicion of Lin Jianqiang, and he also found that someone had offered to send the deceased home alone that night.
In order to find the suspect, Lin Jianqiang called the cleaning company's gang to the police station for three days in a row, and one of the 19-year-old workers, Lu Jingyao, was always late. Lin Jianqiang deliberately arranged for everyone to draw blood for tests, claiming that they could find out who the murderer was through the test (in fact, this possibility has been ruled out), "and the result (Lu Jingyao) was frightened and blue".
Lin Jianqiang then interrogated him alone, "You tell me, are you very worried?" Lu Jingyao whispered, "Asir, I'm not worried." Lin Jianqiang deliberately doubled his voice, "You're not worried? Look at how worried you are."
Lin Jianqiang knew that in the absence of direct evidence, the only way to prosecute him was to make him turn himself in, and psychological warfare became crucial. And he said, "You can talk about it, be comfortable." "You know I'm the Inspector General, do you want me to help you?"
After a few rounds, Lu Jingyao was almost unable to hold on.
Lin Jianqiang said, "I know that you put up that business card after killing people, she was abused before she died, she would not be caught so smoothly, I also found out that you and this class of colleagues are incompatible, borrowed money from others and did not pay it back, but after the crime, you immediately paid back the money, you not only killed people, but also took the money of the deceased." I also know that the night you went to sing, you offered to send the dead home alone, didn't you?"
These stories are Lin Jianqiang's speculations, but they crush Lu Jingyao's last psychological defense line, "Asir, it turns out that you already know so much." Therefore, he explained the process and interrogation of how to rape and kill, how to have evil intentions against the deceased, and how to get the murder weapon, and the details were clearly explained. Finally, he told Lin Jianqiang, "It's really comfortable to say it."
Lin Jianqiang enjoyed the process of fighting wits and courage with the prisoners, and the more complicated the case, the more excited he was, "In fact, it is a very contradictory mood, we hope that the society will be more stable, but we hope to solve the most difficult kind of case." This is lin Jianqiang's biggest motivation to come to Oji, where he can see the most complex and sophisticated cases.
But not all work is as exciting as interrogation. Gathering intelligence, verifying intelligence, collecting evidence, and preparing for prosecution all require a lot of preparation, "evidence is very important, there must be no loopholes." The Police Department often needs sufficient evidence to successfully convict a suspect. In some controversial cases in the past, the Hong Kong government has also been sentenced to lose many times, and the gangster Zhang Ziqiang was arrested by the Hong Kong police, but was released due to insufficient evidence.
After retirement
One day after the Spring Festival, at the Hong Kong Police Sports Recreation Club in Yau Ma Tei's Watercress Street, Lin Jianqiang told the "People" reporter about several bizarre murders that had occurred during his tenure.
It is a beige building built during the British period in Hong Kong, where retired police officers and their families can eat and relax. Winter in Hong Kong is always sunny, from the window to see the past, a few elderly people are exercising in the climbing area, not far away of the light gray building is the Mong Kok Police Station, is also a historical building of the same period, is still in use, Lin Jianqiang said of the ins and outs of those cases, as if it happened in the next block, happened yesterday as clearly.
The "Magic Police Xu Bugao Murder and Gun Murder Case" in 2001 and the "Bank Robbery Murder" committed by the same person in that year are the most time-lasting memories. In order to solve the case, during the 5 years of investigation, Lin Jianqiang often went to the corridor of public housing that made him "sad". Officer Leung Cheng-eun died after being shot five times at close range here, and looking at the black blood on the wall, Lin Jianqiang kept reconstructing the crime scene in his mind, trying to find the key facts of the case that he may have missed.
There are also "funny" memories. Once, the police station suddenly answered the alarm call from the neighbors, saying that the whole street was very smelly, they found that the source was a deserted water tower on the roof, which contained a pile of rotten bones, at first Lin Jianqiang thought it was an animal carcass, and found that it was a person's bones, which was joked by the FEHD, "Is there any mistake?"
Another gangster murder case involved the popular singer Mei Yanfang, who was slapped by the gangster "Hunan Gang" in a luxurious karaoke room, triggering gang clashes. The "Hunan Gang" was slashed and hospitalized by the "New Ngee Ann" people, and then infiltrated the ward and shot and killed. Lin Jianqiang said that at that time, he not only had to track down the murderer of the case, but also sent someone to protect Mei Yanfang's safety.
Going back further, Lin Jianqiang once handled the case in the famous "three disregards" area in Hong Kong history, the Kowloon City Walled City, to rescue a victim who was imprisoned by gangsters. Lin Jianqiang advanced in a number of winding paths, the lights flickered on and off, the sewage dripped down from time to time, emitting a foul smell, his action group stepped on the stinky water, passing through the illegal building, the staircase was the "layout of the spider's web", in order to pass the next step, but also to bend into the hole, insects and rats were nearby.
Hong Kong is densely populated with residential areas. Photo/Visual China
These memories are as turbulent and wonderful as Hong Kong's jaw-dropping history of the 1990s. History is in the past, and the police story of Lin Jianqiang has passed many years ago.
He officially retired from the Force in 2010. During that time, he always woke up in the middle of the night, touched his waist, "What about my gun?" The next second I woke up, "Oh, I've stepped back." Accustomed to the days of 24 hours a gun and being woken up by the phone in the middle of the night, I suddenly lost my sense of security.
But Lin Jianqiang is a person who can't sit idle, he has arranged a full retirement life for himself, and now he is the president of the Police History Collection Association, keen to collect objects related to police history, the most famous collection is a letter of appointment issued by Zhu De when he was the director of the Yunnan Police Department in 1922.
He once said in an interview with the police publication that the greatest satisfaction of collecting does not come from finding a rare cultural relic, but from the process of going through the information and background of these cultural relics. In order to examine whether the letter of appointment issued by Zhu De is genuine, Lin Jianqiang will carefully check whether the title matches the year, and also study the paper and color of the letter of appointment, "What I am most happy about is the process of finding information, just like investigating a case, through various clues, to find out the truth of the facts." When I found the material on the artifact, the joy was indescribable."
He also used the intelligence accumulated during his criminal investigation work to visit gangs in different regions and write books about underworld culture.
"Once I went to Brazil and had a gunfight," he said, with no regret on his face for the rest of his life, and his tone of contentment and even pride in telling these dangerous stories.
He took the initiative to show off his schedule, which was carefully written with the schedule of each day, often working until late at night. Like many Hong Kongers, Lin Jianqiang is reluctant to live a leisurely retirement life, and he has repeatedly corrected the "People" reporter, "I must say retired, I am not retired."
(Transferred from: Characters)