Ancient cities, old streets, snack bars, many people like this kind of ordinary alley strange fireworks. However, in the years of this seemingly quiet town, there was a group of people who made waves underground. They aimed at the ancient pagodas of some counties in Shaanxi, Shanxi and other places, rented houses and opened restaurants nearby, pretended to do business during the day, and dug tunnels in the direction of the ancient pagodas in the shops at night in an attempt to find the underground palace and steal cultural relics.
After a public prosecution initiated by the xianyang city procuratorate in Shaanxi Province, the Xianyang City Intermediate People's Court sentenced defendant Wei Yonggang and 23 others to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 15 years to 3 years' imprisonment and four years' probation for the crime of excavating ancient cultural sites and ancient tombs and reselling cultural relics. Recently, the reporter interviewed the prosecutor handling the case on this strange case.
Stolen gold coffin
Open a hotel during the day And steal cultural relics late at night
The theft of three ancient pagoda underground palaces yielded dozens of precious cultural relics
The two major tributaries of the Yellow River, the Fenhe River and the Weihe River, are deep and deep, giving birth to the splendid ancient civilization of the Chinese nation and leaving a rich cultural heritage. However, for a long time, there have been a large number of tomb robbers active in this area, who have repeatedly extended their hands to ancient tombs, murals, Buddha statues, and even developed into a family-oriented and industrialized tomb robbery gang.
Wei Yonggang is one of them. The 52-year-old was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2004 by the Xindai County Court in Shanxi Province for excavating ancient cultural sites, which was commuted and released in January 2011.
Less than half a year after his release, he returned to his old business, this time targeting the Qingfan Temple Pagoda in the neighboring province of Xingping, Shaanxi Province. When the ancients built pagodas, they often placed jewelry, Buddha statues, Buddhist scriptures and even relics on the top of the tower or in the underground palace, and Wei Yonggang and others targeted these cultural relics.
In July and August 2011, Wei Yonggang arranged for Zhao Xianhua (who was on the run) to rent a house not far from the Qingfan Temple Pagoda on North Street in Xingping City, and arranged for the defendant Wei Shujun to use the cover of "beating cakes" to find someone to drill a hole leading to the Qingfan Temple Pagoda in the house, and finally excavated a silver Ashoka Pagoda, a stone pagoda, a copper coffin, a glass bottle (containing suspected relics and Buddha gold bones), suspected Mani cakes, copper coins and other cultural relics in the underground palace of the pagoda.
In November 2013, Wei Yonggang and Zhang Jianyong (deceased) came to Xunyi County, Shaanxi Province, to conspire to excavate the Tai Pagoda, which was built in the fourth year of the Northern Song Dynasty. Zhang Jianyong rented a private house near Taita, and under the cover of running a steamed bun shop, arranged for the defendants Wei Guoxi, Wei Shujun, and Zhen Anxin to dig holes to steal. In the meantime, Wei Yonggang used a theodolite to locate and guide the direction of the excavation. A month later, the Taita Underground Palace was opened, and Wei Yonggang and Zhang Jianyong stole the reclining Buddha statue, the bronze coffin (containing the silver coffin), the glass bottle (containing the suspected relics), the small Buddha statue and other cultural relics in the underground palace and evacuated the crime site.
In early 2015, Wei Yonggang, Liu Weizhong (who is still at large) and Dong Zhongjie (deceased) discussed stealing bin pagoda (also known as Kaiyuan Temple Pagoda), a landmark building in Binxian (now Binzhou City) in Shaanxi Province. Wei Yonggang and others rented a façade room, and after simple decoration, business licenses, and waiters, the restaurant named "Chuanxiang Restaurant" opened at the end of April of the same year. Every night at about 10 p.m., Wei Guoxi and others dug a hole in Binta from the ground next to the hotel bathroom, and at about 4 a.m., the excavated soil was packed in plastic woven bags and transported away by car. In October, they opened up the Binta Underground Palace and stole precious cultural relics such as sarcophagus, gold coffin, silver coffin, copper coffin, gilded coffin, bronze mirror, and suspected relics.
After investigation, the gang stole 4 first-class cultural relics such as flower-patterned gilted gold and silver coffins, double-phoenix-gilt gilts, stone pagodas, and Ashoka Pagoda in these three crimes, in addition to dozens of second-class, third-class, and general cultural relics.
Stolen copper coffin
Same modus operandi, similar life trajectory
The defendants were either cellmates and relatives
According to Peng Tao, deputy director of the First Procuratorate department of the Xianyang City Procuratorate, who handled the case, in addition to the three successful cases mentioned above, the gang also had four failed cases: the Huiche Temple Pagoda, one of the twin towers in Pucheng County, Shaanxi Province, in 2011, the Taiping Temple Pagoda in Qishan County, Shaanxi Province, in 2014, the Ashoka Pagoda in Dai County, Shanxi Province, and the Dongguo Village Cemetery in Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province in 2016. The first two cases were found to have been stolen and empty after opening the underground palace; the third case was that the underground palace was not found; the fourth case had a long time span, and the cultural relics had not been excavated until Wei Yonggang and others were captured.
"The gang's usual modus operandi is to first step on the point, then rent a house near the target, and use the cover of running a snack bar to drill holes to steal cultural relics." After the crime is completed, the hole is backfilled with soil, and sometimes the snack bar is continued to operate for a period of time to clean up the aftermath. Peng Tao introduced.
In January 2018, the Binxian Public Security Bureau filed and investigated the case, and later transferred it to the Binxian Procuratorate for review and prosecution. On January 22, 2019, the BinXian Procuratorate reported the case to the Xianyang Municipal Procuratorate.
"During the review, we found that some details need to be further confirmed, for example, Wei Yonggang and others were involved in the long time involved in the excavation of the ancient pagoda, the number of people involved, the source of funds before the crime, the whereabouts of the stolen funds after the sale of cultural relics, etc. were not clear enough; whether the mobile phones of the people involved in the case were retrieved, whether they were inspected, whether they found communication records and case materials related to the case; how to deal with the criminal clues provided by Wei Yonggang..." Peng Tao told reporters, the case has undergone two supplementary investigations. In addition, we also require the public security organs to conduct a full investigation of the scene of the crime, the location where the cultural relics involved in the case are stored, and the place of transaction. At the same time, in order to ensure the personal experience of handling the case, we also went to the scene of the crime to supervise the on-site investigation and do so that we had a good idea. ”
The reporter's online review of the judgment of the case found that the 23 defendants spanned the ages of the 60s, 70s and 80s, of which 3 were mainly engaged in organizing and directing excavation activities or reselling cultural relics; the post-70s were mainly engaged in reselling cultural relics, and a small number of them participated in excavation activities; 11 people after the 80s were directly engaged in excavation activities.
Most of the 23 defendants were primary, junior high school or even illiterate, and 13 of them had criminal records, including the crime of stealing ancient cultural sites, intentional injury, robbery, kidnapping, theft, concealment and concealment of crimes, etc. Their first sentence was concentrated around 2000.
This was also confirmed by the Prosecutor. According to Peng Tao, many criminal suspects and Wei Yonggang were once fellow prisoners, and when Wei Yonggang chose his accomplices, the focus was also on the fellow prisoners he met during his imprisonment, or relatives in the same village. "Considering whether it is a repeat offender and sentencing, we also urge the public security organs to actively collect relevant judgment materials." Peng Tao said.
Stolen sarcophagus
Objectively and fairly handle cases And rights are guaranteed in accordance with law
Verification of the main offender's whistle-blowing clues determines his major meritorious service
In the course of handling cases, procuratorial organs adhere to an objective and fair stance, and earnestly listen to the opinions of defendants and their defenders. For example, Wei Yonggang's defender pointed out that wei Yonggang confessed after his return to the case, and reported and exposed the criminal clues of Li Mou and others who illegally excavated the Taiping Xingguo Temple Pagoda in the Salt Lake District of Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province (which is a national key cultural relics protection unit). The procuratorial organs immediately verified this and urged the public security organs to investigate and verify.
"After learning that the BinXian County Public Security Bureau transferred the tip to the Yuncheng police, we rushed to Yuncheng city together with the case-handling personnel of the Public Security Bureau to understand the progress of the case, learned about the investigation in a timely manner, and learned that Wei Yonggang's whistleblowing clues played an important role in cracking the case." Peng Tao told reporters that the court finally agreed to the procuratorate's sentencing recommendation, found Wei Yonggang's major meritorious performance, and gave him a lenient punishment.
In the course of handling the case, Wei Yonggang and other defendants voluntarily and truthfully confessed their crimes, admitted the facts of the alleged crimes and were willing to accept punishment, and on the basis of their voluntary admission of guilt, the Xianyang City Procuratorate carefully distinguished the extent of all defendants' participation in the crime, the role they played, the criminal record, the attitude of admitting guilt, etc., and listened to and seriously considered the defender's opinions. The reporter learned from the interview that all the defendants in the case agreed with the sentencing recommendation put forward by the procuratorial organs and signed a plea affidavit in the presence of the defender.
During the interview, the reporter also learned that the defendant Yang Kunhui suffered from cerebral infarction after being arrested and had limited mobility and could not go to Xianyang City to participate in the trial activities. In January, after communicating and negotiating with the Xianyang Intermediate Court, the Xianyang Municipal Procuratorate drove to Yang Kunhui's home in Wenxi County, Shanxi Province, for a trial.
The conclusion of a case is not the end of a procurator's performance of duties. The 6 ancient pagodas stolen by Wei Yonggang and others are all national key cultural relics protection units, of which 3 were announced by the State Council as national key cultural relics protection units as early as 1988. In the process of handling the case, the procuratorial organs paid attention to extending the procuratorial functions, using procuratorial suggestions to urge relevant departments to actively perform their duties, plug loopholes in the management of cultural relics, and promote comprehensive social management.
"We guided the Binzhou Municipal Procuratorate and the Cultural Relics Protection Department to hold a symposium to conduct in-depth discussions on the problems encountered in the protection of cultural relics." Peng Tao told reporters that the cultural relics protection department said that it will work together to explore the establishment of a long-term mechanism for the protection of cultural relics and jointly retain the traces of history.
Journalist's Note
During the interview, the reporter found that the case of Wei Yonggang and others excavating ancient cultural sites and ancient tombs itself is not a particularly significant or complicated and difficult case, but the problems existing in the case are thought-provoking.
First, 13 of the 23 defendants in the case had criminal records, 8 of whom were not more than 25 years old when they were first sentenced, and committed crimes of either robbery or kidnapping. Seven of these people were Wei Yonggang, whom he met while serving his sentence in prison. Within three or five years of their release or commutation, they committed another crime at the mutual instigation of former inmates. The main offender, Wei Yonggang, was first sentenced for stealing the ancient tower, and half a year after his release from prison, he stepped on the point of stealing the ancient tower again. Judging from this result, the prison disaster did not really make these people change their minds. From the perspective of transforming criminals into law-abiding citizens and enabling them to support themselves after returning to society, both the enforcement organs of punishment and the organs of legal supervision have a long way to go.
Second, of the 6 ancient pagodas and 1 ancient tomb stolen in the case, there are 6 national key cultural relics protection units, 1 municipal cultural relics protection unit, and some even local landmark cultural relics and monuments. The cultural relics under key protection are still stolen and excavated, on the one hand, because the criminals have sophisticated methods and secret ways of committing crimes, on the other hand, it is also related to the weak protection of some grass-roots cultural relics. In Shanxi and Shaanxi, which are large cultural relics provinces, cultural relics are multi-faceted and all over the countryside, and many rely on a small amount of remuneration to hire local people to take care of them, and the technical and defensive means are often insufficient. It should be known that the destruction of cultural relics is irreversible, and it is likely that the repair of the dead sheep will not help anything, and more importantly, it is necessary to take precautions.
The modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity is a very large system and a very specific problem, whether it is to reform criminals or protect cultural relics, it is the proper meaning of it, and all departments, including procuratorial organs, need to fulfill their responsibilities, take the initiative to perform their duties, and consciously assume responsibility.
Source: Procuratorial Daily