Police say gambling-addicted friends masterminded China’s biggest gold heist, stealing almost $4 million worth of gold bars and other solid-gold items.
News of the robbery, which saw a gang escape a luxury gold retailer’s Nanjing store with a staggering 27kg of gold on May 16, left the country stunned.
But after a four-week manhunt, Nanjing police say they have recovered the stolen loot and arrested all of the perpetrators, the Chinese media outlet Guangming reported.
Detectives were initially flummoxed by the meticulously planned robbery.
Store managers arrived at work on the morning of May 16 to find that all of the counters were intact, with no keys out of place. However, 37 gold items were missing.
Investigators at the scene discovered signs of climbing on the second-floor windowsill. But about 80 surveillance cameras in the store had been deliberately turned off overnight. A server search found that the robbers had formatted all existing CCTV data drives.
However, police data recovery efforts soon bore fruit, revealing that an individual had broken into the store’s surveillance room about a month before the robbery.
China’s Biggest Gold Heist: How It Happened
Police said the heist’s main masterminds were two former postgraduate students surnamed Wang and Tong.
Officers said the men had gambled extensively during their university years and had each accumulated mountains of betting-related debts.
After leaving graduate school, Wang found a well-paying job, where he was described as an “outstanding employee.”
But both Wang and his university friend were still mired in debt. After discussing their financial issues online, Wang came up with the idea of stealing gold from the store, police said.
The duo hired nine accomplices to help them carry out their daring raid, officers added. Police said they eventually identified the April store intruder as Wang. They launched a manhunt, only to find that Wang had fled the country on the day of the robbery.
Officers eventually discovered Wang had escaped to Thailand. Bangkok police arrested Wang on May 23, with Chinese officials securing an extradition order shortly after.
Detectives say they found most of the stolen gold during a raid on Wang’s home in China.
An Eight-Province Manhunt
Tong, meanwhile, reportedly took a cross-country taxi to Guangxi Province, racking up a $1,000 fare. Finding himself unable to pay in cash, he instead convinced the driver to accept a gold bar.
Officers found him approaching the China-Vietnam border on foot, reportedly waiting for a human trafficker to help him cross the border.
He had not eaten or slept for two days and two nights, police said. Officers who searched him near a border checkpoint in Ningming County said they found almost 9kg of gold in his pockets.
Police said they also tracked down the nine accomplices after a manhunt across multiple Chinese provinces.
“We conducted a month-long, comprehensive search throughout the [province],” a senior police officer said during the press conference. “Our search took us to gold shops, jewelry stores, pawnshops, luxury goods reselling vendors, and commercial bank branches.”
“This was a well-organized and premeditated criminal operation,” said Li Dahai, the Executive Deputy Director of the Nanjing Municipal Public Security Bureau. “Police officers worked tirelessly, day and night, on this case, meticulously analyzing a whole host of hard-to-decipher clues.”
Earlier this month, Chinese courts warned the public not to gamble on popular board games such as Go.
