Chapter 43.2: So… should he ask Jiang Xia to come over and give it a try?
Feng Zhengming returned to the city police bureau with his head full of questions.
Lame Ding was equally baffled.
They had only sold five bundles of counterfeit coupons yesterday morning. Normally, even if the police started investigating, they should have gone after the middleman first. So how had they managed to track him down and arrest him today?
Could it be that the middleman had betrayed them?
Impossible. The middleman was involved in the same illegal business. Even if he sold them out, he would still end up behind bars.
No matter how much he thought about it, Lame Ding simply couldn’t figure it out.
Tian Jianguo escorted him into the interrogation room, preparing to question him.
The officers sent out by Section Chief Duan brought back all the relevant equipment and counterfeit coupons. There were so many purple counterfeit coupons that they had to be packed in cloth bundles, attracting quite a crowd of onlookers.
Jiang Xia was no exception.
Hearing the commotion, she opened the door and stepped outside.
The Third Squad’s office was already surrounded by officers from various other departments. They gathered around the piles of counterfeit coupons, exclaiming in astonishment.
“My God, that many counterfeit cloth coupons?”
“How many did they actually make?”
“There are exactly 11,860 finished ones. And that doesn’t even include the ones they messed up during printing. You should’ve seen it when I went inside—the floor was covered in counterfeit coupons! They were even printed eight at a time, still connected together!”
“Good heavens!”
“Even a printing factory couldn’t print that many!”
…
…
Jiang Xia walked over and glanced at the piles of counterfeit coupons stacked on the table. She casually remarked,
“They only printed a little over ten thousand? That’s not really that many.”
“Huh? Jiang Xia, you’re here?”
Feng Zhengming had just hung up a call to the train station. Hearing what Jiang Xia said, he instinctively glanced at the counterfeit coupons on the table.
“It may not look like much, but that’s actually a huge number. If all of these had been sold, who knows what kind of trouble it could have caused!”
“No, Captain Feng. I mean they didn’t print nearly enough.”
Jiang Xia said calmly, “This was machine-based printing. Even if the process was only semi-automated, the production speed wouldn’t have been slow. At a minimum, they could print five hundred sheets an hour. If we’d arrested them just two days later, they could probably have printed another ten thousand.”
“Good grief, these are already frightening enough. They can print even more?”
Chen Dong turned his head. He was still holding a bundle of cloth coupons, tapping them against his palm as he spoke.
“But ten thousand cloth coupons only amounts to a hundred bundles. It really doesn’t look like that much. You could carry all of them in one large cloth bag.”
Jiang Xia stood in front of the table and casually picked up a stack of cloth coupons that wasn’t even as long as her palm.
“Who says the coupons are big?”
People didn’t have a complete understanding of the concept of currency yet. Of course, the main reason was that they simply had little experience with it. Whether they were ration coupons or banknotes, contrary to what one might expect from their enormous face values, they actually took up very little space when stacked together.
In the future, when hundred-yuan RMB notes became common, a single suitcase could easily hold more than two million yuan.
And precisely because of this, the total face value of counterfeit currency was often astonishingly high. It usually started in the millions, and amounts exceeding a hundred million weren’t unusual.
This little bit was just the beginning. It was barely worth mentioning.
Jiang Xia put the cloth coupons back on the table and turned to ask,
“By the way, Captain Feng, did you catch the suspects?”
They had brought back all the equipment and counterfeit coupons, so surely they should have brought the criminals back too, right?
But a hint of embarrassment appeared on Feng Zhengming’s face.
After a brief pause, he said,
“There are three people in this gang. So far, we’ve only caught Lame Ding, the one responsible for making the counterfeits. The other two accomplices got away. They took money, forged identification documents, and a set of printing plates for ten-yuan RMB notes with them. We’re still trying to track them down.”
After saying that, Feng Zhengming paused again before adding helplessly,
“But I don’t think our chances are very good.”
“Hiss—”
Jiang Xia couldn’t help sucking in a breath.
That was bad.
With money and identification documents, those two could go practically anywhere. Unless they started printing counterfeit money and selling it, causing a disturbance in whatever city they ended up in, there was basically no way for the police to track their movements.
Chen Dong sighed.
“You guys really got unlucky.”
“Somewhat. But there must have been something we did wrong.”
Feng Zhengming shook his head slightly.
“Old Guo confirmed it just now. Besides the two Ding brothers, there’s another man involved named Yang Da. He usually makes a living connecting people who need fake documents with people who can make them. He’s also been arrested and sent to prison twice before. He’s an old hand with a very strong sense of caution, so when he decided to run, he acted decisively. He bolted without the slightest hesitation.”
Two stints in prison had taught him the hard way, huh? No wonder he was so good at running.
With China’s enormous population, it was inevitable that a few exceptionally capable criminals would emerge. Someone who could keep the police running around in circles like this—this Yang Da fellow had the makings of a major-crimes ringleader.
Jiang Xia felt that she ought to add a little more turbulence to this man’s already eventful life.
“He even took the engraving plate with him. Yang Da will definitely keep counterfeiting money.”
Jiang Xia volunteered, “Make wanted posters with his sketch and send them to the surrounding provinces. Maybe police somewhere else will spot him.”
“That’s what I was thinking too.”
Although he said that, Feng Zhengming was still somewhat worried.
He had a feeling that after getting away this time and gaining this experience, Yang Da would act even faster in the future. He might leave in the morning and already be gone with the money by afternoon. By the time the local police discovered the counterfeiting operation, he would probably have vanished without a trace.
“We should probably coordinate with the railway police as well.”
Feng Zhengming sighed.
“Relying solely on the local police to catch him will definitely put us one step behind.”
“Enough talk. I’m going back to interrogate Lame Ding.”
Feng Zhengming rallied himself and said, “Maybe we can get something useful out of him.”
“Then, Captain Feng, please get me a set of his fingerprints.”
Jiang Xia immediately said, “I need all ten of his fingerprints. He won’t get the death penalty, and he might go back to counterfeiting once he gets out. I need to get his fingerprints on file ahead of time.”
Feng Zhengming froze for a moment and looked at Jiang Xia with some surprise.
Good grief, she was actually planning ahead to prevent future crimes?
＊
The fingerprint collection went smoothly.
The interrogation, however, was a completely different story.
Interrogation Room.
Feng Zhengming sat behind the desk and rapped his fingers against it, his expression stern.
“Ding Er, I’m warning you: your workshop has already been raided, and the evidence of your crimes is crystal clear. On top of that, the amount of counterfeit coupons you produced is enormous. If you confess everything, you can still plead for leniency. But if you keep dragging this out, do you believe we can keep you locked up for the rest of your life?!”
“So lock me up, then.”
Lame Ding looked completely unconcerned.
“If I dared to make counterfeits, I wasn’t afraid of getting caught. At worst, I die. Maybe I’ll be born with a good leg in my next life.”
This man’s psychological defenses were simply too strong.
Feng Zhengming had a splitting headache.
From the moment the interrogation began, Lame Ding had already realized that Ding Si and Yang Da had escaped.
After all, Ding Si was his own younger brother. To protect him, he stubbornly refused to confess anything.
After more than three hours of getting nowhere, Feng Zhengming grew increasingly frustrated. He stood up and strode out of the room without saying a word.
At some point, Section Chief Duan had come down from the third floor. He was waiting outside the interrogation room. The moment he saw Feng Zhengming come out, he immediately asked,
“Well? Did you manage to get anything out of him?”
“No.”
Feng Zhengming looked thoroughly dejected.
“This guy knows his brother is still out there and hasn’t been caught, so he’s unbelievably stubborn. He won’t say a thing.”
Then this really was the most troublesome situation.
When people committed crimes as partners, catching one of them often meant that they would sell out the others in order to reduce their own sentence. But it was different when the accomplices were brothers. With their blood relationship, the person who had been caught could easily sacrifice himself to protect the other.
Such an act wouldn’t even make him feel that he’d done anything wrong. Instead, it could give him an enormous sense of moral satisfaction. It wasn’t something that could be shaken with just a few words.
But at present, Lame Ding was the only one who might know where the other two had gone, as well as who they had sold the counterfeit coupons to.
Section Chief Duan pondered for a moment before saying,
“Doesn’t he have an older sister? Try getting his family to come over and persuade him.”
Feng Zhengming pondered briefly before nodding in agreement.
“Okay.”
…
The next day,
That morning, Ding’s eldest sister was brought in.
Their mother had died when the children were young, and their father had been no father at all. Even the children’s names had been given with remarkable carelessness. Ding’s eldest sister’s actual name was simply Ding Dajie—literally, “Ding Eldest Sister.”
She had worked herself to the bone ever since she was little, and things had been no different after she got married. She wasn’t even forty yet, but she already looked closer to fifty. Silver strands were mixed into her hair, and her face was covered in wrinkles. After entering the city police bureau, she seemed extremely nervous and ill at ease, constantly clutching the hem of her clothes until it was all crumpled.
“Comrade Ding.”
Captain Feng walked over to her. After glancing at the female officer accompanying them and receiving an affirmative look, he said,
“You don’t need to be nervous. Just go in and persuade your brother to cooperate. If he tells us everything, his sentence can be reduced, and he may be able to get out sooner and start living a proper life.”
“Oh, okay.”
Ding Dajie nodded and pushed open the door to the interrogation room.
Lame Ding, who had been resting with his eyes closed, opened them.
He was initially surprised to see who had come, but then he understood.
“Big Sis, they even brought you here. They want you to persuade me, don’t they?”
Although it was phrased as a question, Lame Ding’s tone was utterly certain. He waved his hand.
“Don’t bother trying to persuade me. That’s our fourth brother. I’m looking at at least twenty years inside. I’ll probably never have children of my own in this lifetime. You can’t possibly want him to end up like me, can you?”
“You only realize you’re going to be sentenced now? Then why did you drag him into this in the first place?!”
With no police officers around and facing her own brother, who had broken the law, Ding Dajie’s temper immediately flared.
“How could you possibly face Mom after this? Huh?! Both her sons turned out to be criminals!”
“Mom’s been dead for years.”
Lame Ding had lost his mother when he was very young, so he didn’t have much of an emotional attachment to her. But seeing his enraged elder sister, he couldn’t help feeling somewhat guilty.
“If the police hadn’t come so quickly, I could’ve saved some money for you too. Then our family wouldn’t have to live in such poverty. Sigh, who would’ve thought that after working so hard for several months, we wouldn’t even have made any money before the whole operation got busted? I guess that’s just fate.”
“You—”
Ding Dajie was at a loss for words.
She awkwardly tried to persuade him a few more times, but it was completely useless. In the end, she could only leave helplessly.
“I’m sorry, Comrade Officer. My brother has become more and more headstrong over the past few years. He doesn’t listen to me anymore. There’s nothing I can do to persuade him.”
This was more or less what they had expected.
Feng Zhengming helplessly had someone escort Ding Dajie away for the time being.
Section Chief Duan had been standing outside the interrogation room and had heard the entire exchange. After she left, he frowned.
“His family member wasn’t determined enough to persuade him. She went in there to persuade him, but clearly she was the one who got persuaded!”
“This is my fault for not handling the situation properly,” Feng Zhengming said. “But given their family’s circumstances, Ding Dajie was very likely to side with Ding Er, whether out of emotional attachment or self-interest.”
“Forget it.”
Section Chief Duan waved his hand.
“It’s already today, and we still haven’t caught Ding Si or Yang Da. Those two have probably already left the area. Once they learned that Ding Er had been arrested, they definitely wouldn’t follow their original escape plan. I don’t think we’ll be able to catch those two even if we get a confession out of him. The most important thing now is to find out exactly how many counterfeit cloth coupons they’ve already sold, and who they sold them to. If those coupons have already entered the market, they’ll cause serious trouble.”
“I asked him about that too.”
Feng Zhengming was even more frustrated.
“But for some reason, the man refuses to say anything about that either.”
“Then keep interrogating him.”
Section Chief Duan said, “It’s one thing for him to take the fall for his brother. But there’s no reason for him to protect people in the city. Keep questioning him and figure out what he actually cares about. Once we find that point, we’ll definitely be able to break through his psychological defenses!”
What does he care about?
Hearing Section Chief Duan say this, Feng Zhengming suddenly had an idea.
Come to think of it, Lame Ding did seem to have been rather curious about how he’d been caught all along.
So… should he ask Jiang Xia to come over and give it a try?
Feng Zhengming couldn’t help wondering.
He had a feeling that if he brought Jiang Xia in, it wouldn’t be an interrogation anymore.
It would turn into a technical exchange conference!
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