All have been captured, the tomb raiding group is wearing stolen dragon robes to take photos and show off the stolen | cultural relics | tomb raiding
The Han Dynasty pottery Gui, the Ming Dynasty Hongzhi 18th year Xiao Pei tomb epitaph, the Qing Dynasty Five Claw Dragon Robe... These stolen cultural relics all come from the same group of tomb robbers. This group of tomb robbers has been wandering in multiple provinces such as Guangxi, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Anhui, Gansu, and Guizhou for the past six years, excavating over 40 ancient tombs and over a hundred cultural relics, which can be described as having a notorious reputation. With the unremitting efforts of the public security organs in Guilin, Guangxi, all the suspect involved in the case have been arrested and brought to justice, and the relevant cultural relics have also been recovered.
Over 40 ancient tombs were looted and excavated over 6 years ago
Huangge Town, Nansha District, Guangzhou City faces the vast Shiziyang and the Pearl River estuary, adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao, and faces Dongguan across the river. This was originally an alluvial plain, which has undergone many changes and has now evolved into a landscape of "one mountain, three waters, and six plains". During the reign of Emperor Tongzhi of the Qing Dynasty, the mother of Li Yangsheng, the general of Jieshi in Guangdong, ordered his wife Deng Shude to be buried in the mountains and forests of Huangge Town.
Unexpectedly, over a hundred years later, Lady Deng Shude's tomb was remembered by a group of tomb raiders.
On a night in May 2020, tomb raider Lv Moujun and four others climbed the mountain while it was dark. Several people worked together. After prying open the stone slab on the surface of the cemetery with a shovel, the tomb robbers dug through Mrs. Deng Shude's tomb in just two or three hours, and stole a pair of blue and white general jars with dragon patterns of the Qing Dynasty from the tomb. This pair of jars has a blue background and white flowers, with patterns of blue dragons and auspicious clouds on the body. The workmanship is very exquisite. After obtaining the cultural relics, five members of Lv's army fled in the darkness.
Prior to this, Lv and others often chose ancient tombs that were rarely visited and committed crimes at night. From searching for ancient tombs to carrying out tomb raids, and then reselling stolen goods, this group of tomb raiders has long been familiar with them. But the Heavenly Nets are vast and meticulous, and the theft of ancient tombs and the sale of cultural relics will eventually be discovered.
In October 2020, the Xing'an County Public Security Bureau in Guilin City, Guangxi 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 went to the police and captured Tang Mou'an and other suspect suspected of reselling cultural relics in the hotel, as well as a silver gilded imperial phoenix crown and more than ten ordinary cultural relics such as jade belts in the Qing Dynasty.
After analyzing and judging the relevant information of Tang Mouan, the police found that Tang Mouan had close contact with unemployed individuals such as Lv Moujun and Zhang Mounian. After in-depth analysis, the public security organs have decided to conduct investigations on Lv Moujun, Zhang Mounian, and others.
In early December 2020, the police discovered through investigation that Zhang Mounian and his accomplices were illegally excavating ancient tombs in the Quanzhou area of Guilin. The Xing'an County Bureau quickly arrested Zhang Mounian and his accomplices. Afterwards, after nearly half a year of investigation, Lv Moujun and others were arrested and brought to justice in 2021 on suspicion of a burglary case. So far, all the key figures of this group of tomb robbers have been arrested. Guilin police decided to immediately arrest them and arrest the relevant suspect.
In September 2021, a series of cases involving the theft and excavation of ancient tombs by Lv Moujun, Zhang Mounian, and others were included in the supervision of the Ministry of Public Security. Up to now, the special case team has arrested 42 suspect suspected of cultural relics; We have cracked a total of 53 cases, including cases of illegal excavation of ancient tombs, ancient cultural sites, theft, sale of cultural relics, and concealment of criminal gains. According to statistics, this group of tomb raiders has cumulatively excavated over 40 ancient tombs over the past 6 years.
Tomb robbers wear Qing Dynasty five clawed dragon robes to show off
"When I was a police officer for so many years, it's the first time I've seen such a large-scale gang tomb robbery case." Wen Haibo, Deputy Commander of the Criminal Investigation Brigade in Xing'an County, Guilin City, Guangxi, participated in the entire investigation of this case, but his memory of such rampant crime still lingers in his mind.
There are many people involved in this case, and the time involved is long. The earliest case found so far occurred in 2015, and these people were still stealing until the police arrested them. The gang has a clear division of labor, with some individuals involved in the case responsible for searching for the target of theft, some responsible for providing funds, some responsible for technical exploration, and some responsible for on-site excavation.
They usually determine the ancient tombs to be looted by consulting the local county annals or searching for celebrity tombs online. After obtaining the necessary funds for tomb raiding, they bring detection instruments, Luoyang shovels, probes and other equipment to drive to the burial site, usually taking advantage of the darkness to do so.
Zhao Qiang, the captain of the Ninth Brigade of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of Guilin Public Security Bureau in Guangxi, told reporters that most of the suspects in the case do not have fixed jobs or have gone astray due to business failures. They all want to become rich overnight by stealing cultural relics, among which Zhang Mounian and Lv Moujun are particularly skilled in the theft techniques. According to the confession of the arrested suspect, Zhang put on his five claw dragon robe of the Qing Dynasty stolen from the Zhangjiatai Ancient Tomb in Gansu in one year, and took photos to show off to his colleagues in the tomb robbing circle.
The tomb raiding business of "one capital, ten thousand benefits" has led Zhang Mounian, Lv Moujun and others to take risks and repeatedly flee to commit crimes, involving multiple provinces such as Guangxi, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Anhui, Gansu, and Guizhou.
During the investigation, the public security organs seized a total of 3 stolen second level cultural relics, 15 third level cultural relics, and 147 general cultural relics. However, such precious cultural relics were sold at a low price by this group of suspect who were interested in money: Lv Moujun sold the second level cultural relic, the blue and white general jar with dragon pattern, to a Hunan businessman at a low price of more than 20000 yuan, and the third level cultural relic, the epitaph of Xiao Pei in the 18th year of Hongzhi in the Ming Dynasty, was sold at a price of only 300 yuan... However, due to the large number of cultural relics involved, this group of suspect still made a lot of profits from it.
Why have so many ancient tombs been looted but have not been discovered yet? Wen Haibo said that on the one hand, because the location of the stolen ancient tomb is relatively remote, suspect usually choose to commit crimes late at night, which is difficult for others to detect. Taking the Qing Dynasty Five Claw Dragon Robe, a second-class cultural relic stolen by Zhang in the year, as an example, this relic comes from an ancient tomb in Zhangjiatai Nature Reserve, Gansu. The tomb is surrounded by the Gobi Desert and is rarely inhabited. On the other hand, the suspect have a strong sense of anti investigation. In order to avoid the police's sight, they rarely take public transportation such as airplanes and trains that require personal identification information to be registered. Once they choose an ancient tomb to be looted, they usually drive to the local area by themselves, wait for the opportunity to commit the crime, and quickly sell the stolen cultural relics from the tomb.
In order to accelerate the investigation speed of the case, with the strong support of the cultural and tourism department of Guilin City, the Guilin Public Security Bureau has innovated its working mode by inviting cultural and museum experts to join the team in combat. When searching the suspect and studying and judging the clues of stolen goods, the special case team invited relevant cultural and museum experts to participate in the investigation of the case, to screen and preliminarily identify the stolen goods involved in the case, to help the special team accurately grasp the level and origin of the cultural relics involved in the case, which greatly improved the efficiency of handling the case.
The police traveled over 20000 kilometers to search for the source of the case
Capturing the suspect and recovering the cultural relics involved in the case is only a part of the investigation of the case. It is also necessary to further investigate the source of the case, trace the origin of the stolen cultural relics from which ancient tomb, and identify the grade and origin of the cultural relics involved.
For Guilin Public Security, a major difficulty in this case is to search for the source of the case. The stolen tombs are mostly ancient tombs before the Qing Dynasty, and some tombs are no longer worshipped. Some tombs may have descendants offering sacrifices, but their descendants did not report the theft of the tomb in a timely manner.
In order to investigate the source of the case, the task force stipulates that anyone who discovers new criminal clues must go there to search.
Taking the case team's verification of the epitaph of Xiao Pei in the Ming Dynasty as an example, according to the confession of the suspect, Wen Haibo and his colleagues drove more than 1000 kilometers to Ji'an City, Jiangxi Province. At that time, the descendants of the Xiao family in Ji'an City did not know that the tomb of their ancestor Xiao Pei had been stolen. By studying the location recorded in the epitaph, consulting the local Xiao family genealogy records, coordinating with the local cultural and tourism department, studying the county annals, mobilizing the local people, and organizing dozens of villagers from the Xiao family to search in the mountains, Wen Haibo and others spent 12 days. Finally, with the help of local villagers who were picking pine incense, they successfully found the Ming Dynasty Xiao Pei Cemetery in the mountains and forests, and finally verified the case.
Wen Haibo recalled that there was also a Jiangxi ancient tomb in the deep mountains and forests. The weeds around the tomb were about as tall as adults. In order to find the location of the tomb, the police purchased gloves and sickles, and cut through thorns near the location pointed out by the suspect. The arms and faces of everyone were cut by weeds, and it was finally difficult to find the location of the stolen tomb.
To thoroughly investigate this case, the task force has traveled to Guangdong, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Gansu and other places, with a total distance of over 20000 kilometers. Now the first instance verdict of this case has been pronounced, and the main offenders Zhang Mounian, Lv Moujun, and others have been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. Based on the clues that have been obtained, the Guilin police continue to conduct in-depth investigations, unravel the clues, and strive to arrest more relevant personnel involved in the case and recover more stolen cultural relics.
