In 1995, Chen Xinmin, who had a promising future, planned a bank robbery that shocked the whole country. The bank's cash truck was hijacked by him and his accomplices, taking away a huge sum of 15 million yuan.
Time passed, and this former high-achieving student became the owner of a small town furniture store "Mo Yizhi". During his time in Ruili, Yunnan, he lived a very ordinary life with his wife and daughter.
But his past, like a sharp sword, always hangs over his head.
The police investigation has never stopped, and "Mo Yizhi" has never forgotten his identity. When the police finally knocked on his shop door in 2017, Chen knew that the escape was over, his crimes were revealed, and this time, he had nowhere to run.
"The Aftermath"
In the 1990s, China was at the height of reform and opening up, and special economic zones (SEZs) in the south sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Guangdong Province, especially its provincial capital, Guangzhou, has become an important economic hub in southern China.
Chen Xinmin, a graduate of Guangzhou University, a young man born in Yangshan County, Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province, was a leader of his era. Chen's father, the director of the local highway bureau, came from a privileged family that provided a solid springboard for his future.
Chen graduated with honors from Guangzhou University with honors in bridge architectural design. His talent and background enabled him to quickly find his place in the wave of reform and opening up.
He joined an emerging highway construction company in Guangzhou, where he quickly showed exceptional business acumen and management skills, and was promoted to general manager. The young Chen Xinmin is like a fish in water in the workplace, and has quickly accumulated contacts and wealth.
Still, Chen's ambitions are not limited to day-to-day project management and small-scale entrepreneurship. He has a big vision and wants a piece of Guangdong's infrastructure boom.
He set his sights on an undeveloped road from Qingyuan to Lianzhou, believing that the development of the road would bring continuous wealth.
In order to realize this grand blueprint, Chen Xinmin needs a lot of start-up capital. However, despite being the company's general manager, the liquidity on hand was far from enough to support his plans.
He was frustrated by Chen's attempts to raise funds through formal channels, but the process was cumbersome and slow.
At this time, Chen Xinmin met a number of influential people in social situations. These include a number of veterans and people with experience in escort banking, who know the workings of financial institutions inside out.
During a casual conversation, Chen heard about an extremely fast but risky method of fundraising: bank robbery.
This idea planted a seed in Chen's heart. He began to secretly prepare plans. At this moment, he began to venture into even darker and more dangerous areas.
Chen used his wisdom and connections to quietly assemble a team of old friends and new acquaintances. Some of them are particularly unprepared against the temptation of "getting rich overnight" because of financial difficulties.
Through these connections, Chen learned that a small but relatively isolated branch of the Agricultural Bank of China had a large amount of cash destined for the bank's headquarters in Panyu, Guangdong, about to be transferred.
The security measures in this branch are strict, but they are not at the level of large banks. Chen set the bank as his target and began to plan the steps of the robbery in detail.
In the plan, Chen Xinmin decided not to do it himself, but to act as a behind-the-scenes commander. He carefully chose the date and time of the robbery to ensure that there were as few surprises as possible at all stages.
He also obtained the necessary weapons through insiders - several Type 54 pistols, which were stolen from Liu Guang, the head of the security section of the China Construction Bank, with the help of his friend He Yongxin, a bank escort.
Early one morning in December 1995, Chen's team assembled outside a bank branch in Panyu.
They wore masks and armed weapons, knowing that this action would determine their fate. With the arrival of the bank's cash truck, they moved quickly, and everything went according to Chen's plan.
Bank employees panicked at the sound of gunfire, while large sums of cash were quickly diverted to prepared getaway vehicles.
As the vehicle started, a long-planned robbery began, and Chen Xunmin watched the whole process from the distance in the car, his heart beating very fast, as if it was about to burst out of his chest.
He knew that this step had been taken, and there was no turning back. But at that moment, Chen was determined to go to the end.
"The Road to Escape"
After the money was in hand, the vehicle quickly drove away from the scene of the crime, and Chen Xinmin's team drove straight to a hidden warehouse prepared in advance, carrying a huge sum of 15 million yuan. The warehouse is located on the edge of Guangdong, connected to some remote towns in the Pearl River estuary.
The team stopped here for a short time, quickly transferring cash to a few nondescript tin boxes, which they transferred to another prepared vehicle in the middle of the night, ready to escape by water.
The convoy cautiously headed south, to a remote dock where an old cargo ship was moored. They planned to use the ship to escape to Hong Kong along the coastline of the South China Sea.
At the docks, the team quickly loaded the cash looted from the bank onto the ship, while Chan directed the entire operation to ensure that nothing went wrong.
However, just as they were about to set sail, a small mistake changed everything.
In the confusion of helping to transfer the goods, Ho Wai-kwong accidentally left his pistol on the vehicle used to flee the scene. The gun was clearly numbered enough to be a clue for the police to track them down.
Upon receiving the alarm, the police quickly cordoned off all possible escape routes and began a thorough search of the surrounding area.
A major breakthrough was made in the investigation when the police found the abandoned cash truck and found Ho Wai-kwong's pistol in the car. Through the number of the gun, the police quickly pinpointed the source of the gun, and in turn, learned the possible identity of the suspect.
Meanwhile, Chen and his team encountered a storm at sea, forcing the ship to change course and eventually land in a remote bay in Guangxi.
The shift disrupted their original plans, and team members began to feel anxious and uneasy. They could only hide in Guangxi for the time being, and scattered to a few small local hotels, hoping to escape the limelight for a while.
Through coordination with several provinces and cities, the police gradually narrowed down the scope of the search. They conducted thorough carpet searches in a number of small towns between Guangxi Province and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, leaving no clues unanswered.
In a hotel in a small town in Guangxi, the police found traces of He Yongxin. Subsequently, the police launched a round-up based on this clue.
Just as Chen was about to move again, the police raided their hiding place. In the chaos, some of the team members were arrested, while Chan and several of his accomplices managed to escape and continue their fugitive life. They made their way deep into the border areas of Vietnam, evading capture along the way.
Eventually, due to the constant pressure and the hardships of life on the run, Chen and Chen decided to go their separate ways.
Alone, Chen continued to flee south, passing through several countries, and finally living incognito in a small town in Myanmar, pretending to be an ordinary worker.
Although Chen managed to evade the police, the shadow of arrest always hangs over his heart. During his days in a foreign country, he was always on the lookout for fear that one day the police would suddenly attack and end all his escape.
This fear and uneasiness became an invisible shackle for the rest of his life.
"The Journey to the End"
Chen had fled to Fujian, but soon after, in order to further escape his tracking, he moved to the northwest and then to Hainan.
The news broadcast on television shattered his temporary calm: five of his companions were sentenced to death by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court in February 1996. The news alarmed him, and with deep fear, he decided to leave China and fled to Vietnam.
After a stint in Vietnam, he infiltrated Myanmar and eventually returned to Ruili in Yunnan via a border trail.
In Yunnan, Chen Xunmin went by the pseudonym "Mo Yizhi", and the hardships of life forced him to find a manual job on a construction site. During this difficult part-time job experience, he soaked in cement and sweat every day, hoping to earn enough money to support himself.
In 1999, he met Yang Zijuan on the construction site, and the woman developed a liking for his honesty and hard work. Chen Xinmin lied to Yang Zijuan that she was an orphan and that she had received nine years of compulsory education.
Yang Zijuan was moved by his story, and the two soon fell in love and began to build a family together. Because of financial difficulties, Yang Zijuan borrowed 2,000 yuan from her cousin, and the couple began to work together as cement workers at construction sites, barely making ends meet.
By 2004, Chen was already the father of three children, and although he has not been discovered by the police, he has not given up his desire to improve his living conditions and that of his family.
He decided to start his own business and open up a new life path, so he opened a small shop in Ruili's building materials market. Chen hopes to officially end the displacement and provide a stable and secure future for her family.
His life seems to be gradually getting "on track".
In order to better integrate into Ruili's community life, Chen always wears a pair of signature black-rimmed glasses, which becomes a kind of disguise for him.
In her marriage to Yang Zijuan, Chen Xianmin lied that her ID card was lost, so she could not officially register her marriage with Yang Zijuan. This lie not only obscures his past, but also allows him to avoid too much formal interaction with the government, thereby reducing the risk of being discovered.
When registering the company, he once again skillfully used the name of his wife's younger brother Yang Zipeng to further maintain his identity.
Time passed, and the police did not give up the pursuit of Chen Xinmin. Despite his best efforts to hide, Chen pushed him back into the police's sight.
One of Chen's former accomplices turned himself in because he was suffering from cancer and felt that his time was running out. Through his description, the police successfully found Chen's traces. The police investigation found that Chen had never done business with Cantonese people and had never spoken Cantonese.
Through this detail, in 2016, the police successfully arrested Chen Xinmin, ending his more than 20-year career as a fugitive. During the arrest, he did not put up any resistance and was clearly exhausted. After being arrested, Chen was taken back to Guangdong, and Chen confessed to his actions back then.
After that, Chen Xinmin made a phone call to his wife's younger brother: "This was more than 20 years ago. ”
Chen Xinmin left Yang Zipeng a belt and a note, which read: "It's been more than 20 years, it's over, I have also returned to my hometown, I want to take care of my children, and teach them to be independent and self-reliant...... The signature is his pseudonym "Mo Yizhi (Chen Xinmin)" for many years.
This is the first time in 21 years that he has left a text in his real identity.
The Guangzhou police then made public the details of Chen's crime online, which allowed Yang Zijuan and other family members to really understand the seriousness of the crime he had committed.
Chen was sentenced to a heavy prison sentence for bank robbery and a series of crimes that resulted in it.
In the end, Chen was sentenced to life imprisonment, forfeited all political rights, and had all his personal property confiscated. Chen had to spend the rest of his life in captivity.
epilogue
As a gifted and intelligent student, Chen Xinmin originally had a bright future, but chose the path of crime because of greed and short-sightedness.
The bank robbery in 1995 was not only a great impact on society, but also the beginning of a turning point in Chen's life. Since then, he has turned his back on his talent and conscience and embarked on a flight of no return.
Although he lived on the run for 21 years, he did not escape the punishment of the law.
When greed blinds us, the bottom line of morality and law is breached, and every step taken can become a footprint to the abyss.