Tao Gui of the Han Dynasty, Xiao Pei's epitaph in the eighteenth year of Hongzhi in the Ming Dynasty, the five-clawed dragon robe of the Qing Dynasty... The stolen artifacts were all from the same group of tomb thieves. Over the past six years, this gang of tomb thieves has traveled to Guangxi, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Anhui, Gansu, Guizhou and other provinces, excavating more than 40 ancient tombs and excavating hundreds of cultural relics. With the unremitting efforts of the public security organs in Guilin, Guangxi, all the suspects involved in the case have been arrested and brought to justice, and relevant cultural relics have also been recovered.
Some of the materials involved in the Guilin public security organs seized. Photo by Guo Chaokai
In 6 years, more than 40 ancient tombs were excavated
Huangge Town, Nansha District, Guangzhou, faces the vast Shiziyang and Pearl River estuary, adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao, and across the river from Dongguan City. Originally an alluvial plain, it has evolved into a landform of "one mountain, three waters and six plains". During the reign of Tongzhi of the Qing Dynasty, Li Yangsheng's mother Yipin, the commander-in-chief of Guangdong's land route, ordered his wife Deng Shude to be buried in the mountains and forests of Huangge Town.
Unexpectedly, more than a hundred years later, Mrs. Deng Shude's tomb was remembered by a group of tomb thieves.
One night in May 2020, tomb robber Lu Moujun and four people took advantage of the dark to touch the mountain. After prying open the stone slabs on the surface of the cemetery with shovels, the gang of tomb thieves dug through the tomb of Mrs. Deng Shude in only two or three hours and stole a pair of Qing Dynasty dragon-patterned blue-and-white general jars from the tomb. This pair of jars have white flowers on a blue background, and the body of the jar is tattooed with green dragons and auspicious clouds, and the workmanship is very exquisite. After the cultural relics arrived, the five members of Lu's army took advantage of the night to escape.
Stolen Qing Dynasty tombs. Photo by Guo Chaokai
Before that, Lu Huajun and others often chose ancient tombs that were inaccessible and used late at night to commit crimes. From finding ancient tombs to robbing tombs to reselling and selling stolen goods, this gang of tomb thieves has long been familiar with it. However, Skynet has not been leaked, and the theft of ancient tombs and the resale of cultural relics will one day be discovered.
In October 2020, the Xing'an County Public Security Bureau in Guilin, Guangxi Province, received a report from the public that someone was reselling cultural relics in a hotel in Xing'an. The Xing'an Criminal Investigation Brigade quickly dispatched the police and arrested Tang Mou'an and other criminal suspects suspected of reselling cultural relics in the hotel, and seized more than 10 general cultural relics such as a Qing dynasty silver gilt order phoenix crown (later identified as a third-class cultural relics) and a Qing jade belt.
After analyzing and judging the relevant information of Tang Mouan, the police found that Tang Mou'an had close contacts with Lu Moujun, Zhang Mounian and other unemployed people. After in-depth study and judgment, the public security organs decided to launch an investigation against Lu Moujun, Zhang Mounian and others.
In early December 2020, the police discovered through investigation that Zhang Mounian and others had illegally excavated ancient tombs in the prefecture of Guilin, and the Xing'an County Bureau quickly arrested Zhang and his two accomplices. Since then, after nearly half a year of investigation, in 2021, Lu Moujun and others were arrested for suspected burglary cases. At this point, the key core figures of this group of tomb robbers have all been arrested, and the Guilin police decided to immediately close the net and arrest the relevant criminal suspects together.
In September 2021, the series of cases of Lu Moujun, Zhang Mounian and others in stealing ancient tombs (also known as the "5.26" series of theft and excavation of ancient tombs) were included in the supervision cases by the Ministry of Public Security. Up to now, the task force has arrested a total of 42 suspects suspected of cultural relics cases; A total of 53 cases involving theft and excavation of ancient tombs, ancient cultural sites, theft (involving cultural relics), resale of cultural relics, and concealment of criminal proceeds were solved. According to statistics, this gang of tomb thieves has excavated more than 40 ancient tombs in six years.
Tomb robbers wear Qing dynasty five-clawed dragon robes on their bodies to show off
"After so many years as a police officer, it is the first time I have seen such a large-scale gang robbery case." Wen Haibo, deputy captain of the Xing'an County Criminal Investigation Brigade in Guilin, Guangxi Province, participated in the investigation of the case throughout the process, but such a rampant crime still made him remember it vividly.
The case involved many people and a long time, and the earliest cases found occurred in 2015, and these people were still stealing and digging until the police arrested them. The gang has a clear division of labor, and some of the people involved are responsible for finding targets for theft, some are responsible for providing funds, some are responsible for technical exploration, and some are responsible for excavation on the spot.
They usually determine the ancient tombs to be excavated by consulting local county records or searching for celebrity tombs on the Internet, and after obtaining the funds needed for tomb robbery, they drive to the location of the tomb with detection instruments, Luoyang shovels, probes and other equipment, generally taking advantage of dark.
Zhao Qiang, captain of the Ninth Brigade of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Guilin City Public Security Bureau in Guangxi, told reporters that most of the suspects involved in the case did not have fixed jobs, or went astray due to business failures, and all wanted to get rich overnight by stealing cultural relics. According to the confession of the arrested criminal suspect, Zhang once draped the five-clawed dragon robe of the Qing Dynasty that he stole in the ancient tomb of Zhangjiatai in Gansu Province, and took photos to show off to his peers in the tomb robbery circle, arrogant.
Stolen second-class cultural relics of the Qing Dynasty five-clawed dragon robe. Photo by Guo Chaokai
The tomb robbery business of "one million profits" made Zhang Mounian, Lu Moujun and others take risks and repeatedly wander to commit crimes, involving Guangxi, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Anhui, Gansu, Guizhou and other provinces.
In the course of investigation, the public security organs seized a total of 3 stolen second-class cultural relics, 15 third-class cultural relics and 147 general cultural relics (sets). But such a precious cultural relic was resold at a low price by this group of criminal suspects who saw the eyes of money: the second-level cultural relics dragon pattern blue and white general jar was sold by Lu Moujun to a Hunan businessman at a low price of more than 20,000 yuan, and the price of the third-level cultural relics Xiao Pei's epitaph in the eighteenth year of Hongzhi in the Ming Dynasty was only 300 yuan... However, due to the large number of documents involved, this group of criminal suspects still profited a lot.
Public security organs found a large number of stolen cultural relics from the homes of criminal suspects. Photo courtesy of Guilin Municipal Public Security Bureau
Why have so many ancient tombs been excavated but not discovered? Wen Haibo said that on the one hand, because the location of the stolen tomb is relatively remote, criminal suspects generally choose to commit crimes late at night, and it is difficult for others to detect. Take the Qing Dynasty five-clawed dragon robe stolen by Zhang in the next year, which comes from an ancient tomb in the Zhangjiatai Conservation Area in Gansu Province, surrounded by the Gobi Desert and inaccessible. On the other hand, this group of criminal suspects has a strong sense of anti-investigation. In order to avoid the police's sight, they rarely travel by plane, train and other public transportation that require personal identification information, and once they select an ancient tomb to be excavated, they usually drive to the local area on their own, waiting for the opportunity to commit crimes, stealing cultural relics from ancient tombs and quickly reselling the stolen goods.
In order to speed up the investigation of the case, with the strong support of the Guilin Municipal Cultural and Tourism Department, the Guilin Public Security Municipal Bureau innovated the work mode - inviting cultural experts to accompany the team. When searching criminal suspects and studying and judging clues of stolen goods, the special case team invited relevant cultural experts to participate in the investigation of the case, conduct screening and preliminary appraisal of the relevant stolen goods involved in the case, and provide assistance to the special class to accurately grasp the grade and source of the stolen goods, greatly improving the efficiency of case handling.
Police trekked more than 20,000 kilometers to find the source of the crime
Catching a criminal suspect and recovering the materials involved in the text is only a part of the investigation of the case, and it is necessary to further clarify the source of the case, trace which ancient tomb the stolen cultural relics came from, and identify the grade and source of the material involved.
For the Guilin police, one of the major difficulties in this case is to find the source of the case. Most of the stolen tombs are ancient tombs before the Qing Dynasty, and some tombs have no one to worship. Although some tombs were worshipped by descendants, their descendants did not report the case in time after discovering that the tombs were stolen.
In order to find out the source of the case, the task force stipulated that whenever a new criminal clue was discovered, no matter where it was, it was necessary to go to find it.
Taking the special case team's verification of Xiao Pei's epitaph in the Ming Dynasty as an example, according to the confession of the criminal suspect, Wen Haibo and his colleagues drove more than 1,000 kilometers to Ji'an City, Jiangxi Province, where the descendants of the Xiao family did not know that the grave of their ancestor Xiao Pei had been stolen and excavated. Through studying the location recorded in the epitaph, consulting the local Xiao clan genealogical records, docking with the local cultural and tourism department, studying the county record, mobilizing the local people, organizing dozens of villagers of the Xiao family to go into the mountains to search, Wen Haibo and others lasted 12 days, and finally with the help of local villagers picking rosin, they successfully found the Xiao Pei cemetery in the mountains and forests, and finally verified the case.
Wen Haibo recalled that there was also an ancient tomb in Jiangxi in the deep mountains and old forests, and the weeds around the tomb were almost as tall as adults, in order to find the location of the tomb, the police bought gloves and sickles, and cut thorns near the location identified by the suspect, and everyone's arms and faces were cut by weeds, and finally it took hardship to find the location of the stolen tomb.
In order to thoroughly investigate the case, the special case team went to Guangdong, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Gansu and other places, covering a total distance of more than 20,000 kilometers. Now that the verdict of the first instance of this case has been announced, Zhang Mounian and Lu Mousen and other principal criminals have been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. According to the clues they have obtained, the Guilin police continue to follow the in-depth trace, follow the line, and strive to arrest more relevant people involved in the case and recover more stolen cultural relics.
Source: From China News Network