Diary of a Criminal Investigator

After assigning tasks to several squads, Lu Chuan wasn’t idle either.

In less than 20 minutes, Wang Hao, the crime scene investigator from the Criminal Investigation Team, arrived on the scene with his tools.

"You assist me, I’ll handle the crime scene investigation myself."

Without wearing protective gear, he put on gloves and personally got into the vehicle to conduct the investigation.

Though time was tight, Lu Chuan was meticulous in his investigation steps, more diligent than any previous time.

Urgent matters should be handled slowly, while minor matters should be tackled quickly.

This was a phrase his grandfather taught him before he started working.

The more urgent the task, the more carefully it should be done, to avoid any mistakes.

The less someone pesters you, the more you should seize the time to complete it.

"Black light."

Lu Chuan first inspected the exterior of the vehicle, focusing on collecting fingerprints from places like the door handles.

When collecting fingerprints, Lu Chuan rarely used methods like the powder technique with magnesium powder.

Because fingerprints collected using the powder technique tend to have more shorts.

Additionally, after processing fingerprints with this method, it’s difficult to collect them a second time.

With a black light, fingerprints can be presented in their most original state.

So as long as lighting conditions permit, Lu Chuan generally uses a black light to find fingerprints before collecting them.

Of course, while this method yields fingerprints that have a higher degree of restoration, it makes identification analysis much more challenging.

But with Lu Chuan’s advanced fingerprint identification and analysis skills, he can still manage it.

The fingerprints on the entire door handle were chaotic, and Lu Chuan had to handle them carefully.

Lu Chuan saw in the surveillance that the perpetrators weren’t wearing gloves.

The driver wasn’t wearing gloves either.

This is where general crime differs from murder crime.

Generally speaking, whether it’s theft or murder cases, as long as the perpetrator is a bit experienced or has looked up some information online, they’ll find ways to hide their fingerprints or footprints.

But in other types of cases, most won’t encounter similar situations.

Take this human trafficking case, more precisely the child abduction case.

They scouted well in advance, highlighting precision, accuracy, and ruthlessness.

They knew there were other adults at home, but they took advantage of a moment of inattention, knocked the child unconscious, and took them away.

Why did this group target Beidou Village?

Simply because it’s a shanty town redevelopment area, infrastructure is lacking, and there’s virtually no surveillance, thus they chose to strike there.

So regarding details like fingerprints, the perpetrators had no time or simply disdained to deal with them.

The fingerprint collection went smoothly, and Lu Chuan also found a lot of skin flakes and hair on the vehicle.

With these samples, as long as there’s a match, the identities of the traffickers can be confirmed.

From the current situation, the perpetrators were at least two individuals, one being the driver and responsible for driving.

The other was responsible for abducting the child and executing the specific actions.

While Lu Chuan was investigating the white van, the traffic police also provided some information.

Upon arriving at the scene, Lu Chuan immediately reported the chassis number related to the white van to the Traffic Police Team.

Because there’s no license plate, information can only be queried via the chassis number.

"Captain Lu, the traffic police have already checked, this is a scrapped vehicle registered at the North Suburb Scrapyard."

North Suburb Scrapyard?

"Have Chen Jiang go over there immediately and find out why this scrapped vehicle appeared in the city!"

Turns out it’s a scrapped vehicle.

Lu Chuan originally thought the vehicle was stolen or privately owned, where some clues could be traced through the vehicle information.

But he didn’t expect the vehicle to be a scrapped car.

Chen Jiang had already set off from the Traffic Police Team, speeding towards the North Suburb Scrapyard.

Haizhou City has many scrapyards, and the North Suburb one is relatively large.

When Chen Jiang arrived, he requested personnel from the Traffic Police Team to come help.

Scrapped vehicles fall under the jurisdiction of the traffic police, so their cooperation was more effective.

Furthermore, scrapped vehicles are strictly prohibited from being on the road, originally meant to be parked inside the North Suburb Scrapyard, yet the vehicle instead appeared in the city center.

Why?

It doesn’t take much guessing; someone from the scrapyard here likely sold the vehicle privately.

There are many ways to handle scrapped vehicles.

Of course, regulation dictates that all scrapped cars should be destroyed.

However, certain scrapped vehicles aren’t scrapped due to age or mileage.

They may be the result of cars having catastrophic accidents.

Aside from the destroyed parts from the crash, other components often remain intact.

Therefore, parts from scrapped cars can be used as disassembly components.

There are people based in the scrapyard specializing in this work.

The disassembled parts sold on the market often come from here.

Those parts might also originate from genuinely age-old, high-mileage scrapped vehicles.

Apart from selling disassembled parts, some units or operational vehicles might be scrapped due to age.

Yet in reality, these cars might have low mileage and good condition.

Especially unit vehicles, even if they have high age, they might have low mileage and decent condition, which means they might be sold whole.

However, these scrapped vehicles aren’t allowed to be legally registered and driven, so they might be sold to mines for internal roads use.

The most common are durable vehicles like the Prado and Land Cruiser.

Some people might buy these vehicles to put license plates on them and continue driving, which is illegal.

The white van discovered by Lu Chuan and the others was likely bought by someone from here.

But without registration, they just started driving.

"Well... we need to check this out."

The scrapped vehicle management personnel replied hesitantly.

"Li Hu! Do you not want to work in this industry anymore?"

Traffic police officer Zhang Yun, who came with Chen Jiang, is responsible for scrapped vehicle records management at the High-tech Zone Traffic Police Team.

Zhang Yun knew Li Hu and the others.

"The chassis number is registered under your section, and now you’re telling me you need to check? Check what? The darned cars were sold by you," he yelled, "Don’t tell me someone stole them from you."

Hearing this, Chen Jiang immediately became grim and serious.

"Li Hu! This vehicle is involved in a trafficking case."

"The suspects used this vehicle to commit a crime... And it’s registered under your scrapyard’s name. I now have reason to suspect you’re involved in the crime!"

Li Hu listened, his legs turned to jelly.

He hurriedly explained, "It’s not my business, I... I wouldn’t do such a thing!"

Chen Jiang knew that the other party definitely knew where the vehicle went: "But if you can’t clarify the vehicle’s whereabouts, I’m not trying to scare you, you’ll definitely be brought in for further investigation!"