Diary of a Criminal Investigator

"And before I got involved, Zhang Haiyan definitely trafficked other children."

When Zhang Haifeng first confessed, he laid everything out.

"But I don’t know how many specifically."

According to Zhang Haifeng, his involvement in this line of work was purely due to Zhang Haiyan’s persuasion.

All these years, Zhang Haiyan worked outside the village, but no one knew exactly what she did. Nonetheless, she managed to bring back ten to twenty thousand yuan annually.

This amount is not a small sum for a rural area, where most people would consider earning thirty to fifty thousand yuan in a year from working away quite satisfactory.

After covering living expenses in the city, including rent and other necessities, bringing back two to three thousand yuan at the end of the year was already quite good.

But in recent years, Zhang Haiyan’s family not only built a two-story villa but also bought a car. You

"I asked her what kind of work she was doing to make so much money."

"At first, she didn’t tell me, but said that if I followed her once, I’d know how to make money."

"Later... I found out she was doing this kind of work."

"How did you handle the children’s identities when you abducted them?"

This was the most important issue.

Kids couldn’t remain undocumented forever.

Furthermore, many places now have strict crackdowns on trafficking; even in some remote mountainous regions, they can’t just randomly register an unknown child.

Therefore, a legitimate birth certificate is a prerequisite.

"Zhang Haiyan has connections and can contact people who sell birth certificates."

"And we sold children separately from the birth certificates; a birth certificate alone could sell for 30,000 yuan."

"But she never shared that money with me..."

Birth certificates?

Upon hearing this, Wang Zhaokai immediately recalled the case involving stolen birth certificates that the Criminal Investigation Team had been following up on recently.

Although they had arrested someone at the time, the whereabouts of the birth certificates had not been discovered yet.

"Do you know where she bought the birth certificates from?"

"I really don’t know this."

Zhang Haifeng shook his head.

"Zhang Haiyan said that getting the children was easy, but obtaining the birth certificates was difficult, so she always got the birth certificates first before getting me to help her with the children."

Zhang Haifeng continued: "Moreover, I felt like this time she had more than one birth certificate, because she scoped out two locations; she told me after dealing with this child, we would get another one, and then stop for the year."

According to the information provided by Zhang Haifeng, Zhang Haiyan trafficked at most two to three children a year.

She never did more and always randomly selected targets in different cities.

According to Zhang Haifeng, during the first two selections, he accompanied the target on a train and randomly got off at a station.

"Usually, Zhang Haiyan would go directly to urban villages in the city to see if there was an opportunity. If the place had too many surveillance cameras, she would leave with me."

"Like in this case with Beidou Village in Haizhou City, there wasn’t much surveillance inside, so she took me there."

"The previous time was also in an urban village under renovation, which was very chaotic and easy to take advantage of."

"In essence, when there was a suitable target, she acted; otherwise, she left."

"Can you tell me where the previous two children were taken?"

"One went to Group Nine in Gourd Village, West Valley Town, Huangcheng County, Qingzhou; the other went to North Mountain Valley Village, Sun Family Valley Town, Baishui County, Heishan City..."

Zhang Haifeng’s account was very clear.

In the meeting room, Wang Zhaokai and Chen Jiang were reporting on the interrogation situation.

"Zhang Haiyan refuses to say anything, claiming adamantly that Zhang Haifeng made her do it, and she knows nothing else."

After three hours, Chen Jiang’s side had no results.

There was no information about previous child trafficking cases; Zhang Haiyan insisted this was her first time, and everything else was Zhang Haifeng’s doing.

Lu Chuan turned to Wang Zhaokai: "How’s your side?"

"He confessed."

"Zhang Haifeng confessed that everything was Zhang Haiyan’s responsibility, and he only helped; together, they trafficked three children..."

Wang Zhaokai detailed the information Zhang Haifeng confessed.

"Damn, which of these two is telling the truth?"

Even though Zhang Haifeng confessed much information, it didn’t mean what Zhang Haifeng said was true.

Who among the two is the true mastermind is still not determined.

Zhang Haiyan insisted everything was Zhang Haifeng’s doing.

If she was telling the truth, then Zhang Haifeng had confessed to the crime but pushed all the responsibility onto Zhang Haiyan.

It’s also possible that Zhang Haifeng spoke the truth about everything and that Zhang Haiyan was the main perpetrator, while he only assisted.

"Two directions."

After listening to the report, Lu Chuan began to organize the next steps.

"First, contact the police stations in their hometowns to verify Zhang Haifeng’s claims; find out if Zhang Haiyan really built a two-story building, and understand their economic situation."

"If necessary, Chen Jiang, take some people over there to investigate further."

"Investigate their families."

"On one hand, ensure whether they knew anything about it, and also look into the sources of their incomes and what they told their families."

"Alright, I’ll set out at dawn."

"On the other hand," Lu Chuan looked at Wang Zhaokai: "Contact Tianzhou City and Binzhou City early tomorrow morning to confirm the details of the two trafficked children Zhang Haifeng mentioned."

"If confirmed, we’ll immediately head to Qingzhou and Heishan."

Regardless of the truth in their statements, Lu Chuan’s main priority was to verify if the trafficked children were indeed in Qingzhou and Heishan.

If so, the first thing to do was to rescue them.

After arranging the tasks, Lu Chuan called Zhang Hui.

"You said there’s a lead about the birth certificates?"

Zhang Hui’s voice shot up an octave.

Lately, he had been driven almost mad over the birth certificate case.

While they had caught the person who stole the birth certificates, the recipient of them had vanished without a trace post-transaction.

It was apparent that the perpetrators had utilized a suspect who once worked in the Maternal and Child Health Hospital.

Moreover, the suspect seemed aware that the case could likely be cracked by the police.

Thus, upon obtaining the birth certificates, they immediately disappeared.

Zhang Hui even suspected that the person wasn’t from Haizhou City and was merely there for a one-time transaction.

Recently, due to this case, Qin Yong had scolded him thoroughly.

To his surprise, Lu Chuan had picked up a lead.

"Today we busted a child trafficking case. According to the suspects, they had a way to purchase birth certificates."

"I was thinking we could set a trap."

"A trap?"

"Yes, I just wanted to give you a heads-up. We might need your collaboration then."

"No problem with collaboration; you can call me anytime!"

"Alright."

After hanging up, Lu Chuan glanced at the wall clock.

It was already 1 a.m.

He thought for a while and instructed, "Let’s go to Zhang Haiyan’s interrogation room."