National Forensic Doctor-Chapter 850 - 789: Running the Map (Requesting Monthly Pass)

Chapter 850: Chapter 789: Running the Map (Requesting Monthly Pass)

"I have some leaders from the Zhengguang Bureau Anti-Drug Brigade here with me, I’m putting you on speaker," Jiang Yuan told Pang Jidong on the other end of the phone, then turned on the speakerphone and placed it at the center of the conference table.

"Okay, Master," Pang Jidong quickly responded, and then greeted with a laugh, "Hello everyone, I’m Pang Jidong from the Luo Jin City Criminal Police Brigade Fourth Squadron."

"Captain Pang, hello, hello, I’m Shi Zhonglong from the Anti-Drug Brigade; we’ve probably met before, haha..." Shi Zhonglong had actually been to Luo Jin City to make arrests and had spent some time there, so he remembered several of the squadron leaders there.

Looking up at Jiang Yuan, Shi Zhonglong was both curious and striking up a conversation, "Captain Pang, when did you become an apprentice to Doctor Jiang?"

"It’s been about a year. My master is very serious about teaching me; I even went to Beijing not long ago to study with him for over a month," Pang Jidong introduced himself cheerfully, without going into complete detail, as he didn’t know the situation on the other end and naturally wanted to support his master in the situation.

The leaders from the Anti-Drug Brigade quickly exchanged greetings.

It was only then that Shi Zhonglong and the others finally confirmed that Jiang Yuan was indeed Pang Jidong’s master and that it was a formal apprenticeship, with teaching and learning involved.

Within the police community, such mentor-apprentice relationships are relatively traditional, and they are quite common and highly respected.

The room full of people glanced at each other, smoking cigarettes, and looking at Jiang Yuan’s face, all falling into thought.

Ningtai Jiang Yuan, utterly outrageous!

Snap.

Jiang Yuan took out a cigarette, preparing to fend off second-hand smoke, and flicked his lighter without lighting it.

Shi Zhonglong quickly reached for the lighter in front of him and lit Jiang Yuan’s cigarette for him.

Jiang Yuan nodded in thanks to Shi Zhonglong, then addressed the phone, "Jidong, we now need to trace a drug trafficker known as Niu Er. The last information we found was that he called his girlfriend from Luo Jin City. We have his location at the time of the call; see if it’s convenient for you to follow up..."

Niu Er had fled in a panic, leaving many goods and money at his home and his girlfriend’s place. The reason Niu Er made the call was to have his girlfriend help hide the goods and transfer the money.

As for whether his girlfriend was under police surveillance, he couldn’t afford to think about that at the time.

That was the last message from Niu Er; afterward, he vanished without a trace, probably having assumed a new identity by then.

Pang Jidong listened carefully as Jiang Yuan explained the case, then said, "That’s easy, I’ll first speak to the Image Reconnaissance Brigade, then head to the command center. All our footage is streamlined there now..."

The Luo Jin City Criminal Police only go up to the brigade level, and the subordinate image investigation units are also at the brigade level, similar to those in Changyang City. By comparison, the Ningtai County Criminal Police Team only reaches the squadron level, and image investigation previously had just an office with three people.

Jiang Yuan first hung up the phone, then spread out the case file of Niu Er and started to read.

Li Qian, the head of the Anti-Drug Brigade, thought for a moment and decided to stay, eager to root out the heroin network now that they had made contact with Luo Jin City’s side, which was more traditional than the synthetic drug routes. If they could take it down, it would be difficult to regroup quickly, and drug dealers would have to pay a higher price to resume operations.

Cui Qishan coughed twice, taking on the task of diplomacy.

While the room was cloaked in a hazy atmosphere from smoking, creating a feeling like an "Immortal Realm," Pang Jidong’s call came through again. Several technicians then took over, getting to work.

Soon, the large display in the Anti-Drug Brigade’s meeting room was synced with the content from the Luo Jin City Image Reconnaissance Brigade’s screens.

"Master, let me know which time and place you want to check the surveillance footage for," Pang Jidong was already familiar with Jiang Yuan’s methods and knew that video resources were his current priority.

Jiang Yuan turned to look at Captain Shi.

Shi Zhonglong immediately reported the time and place.

The Luo Jin city image investigation swiftly pulled up a 9-screen display, and said, "These are the main intersections in the Wufeng District with vehicle checkpoints and facial recognition cameras. I have just run the facial recognition, and there’s no match for Niu Er."

The cameras at the facial recognition checkpoints are very clear, almost as good as a smartphone camera placed close to the face. The pedestrian walkways and intersections where people usually pass by are captured by the cameras. If someone isn’t paying attention, they will definitely be photographed.

If someone is especially careful so as not to be captured, they obviously need to be paid more attention to.

"Run a set for faces with masks," Jiang Yuan said after checking the software model used by Luo Jin City, issuing an order.

The Luo Jin City image investigation team responded and quickly brought up a large number of images, "There are 2720 images."

"Add sunglasses. Look for those wearing masks and sunglasses at the same time," Jiang Yuan instructed.

The Luo Jin City image investigation team followed through, and this time, there were only a little over twenty images.

Jiang Yuan and his team reviewed each one, but unfortunately, found no match for Niu Er.

"That might take a while, maybe we can organize a team to go through the 2720 images, see if there’s any that resemble Niu Er," Pang Jidong suggested proactively.

"All right, then. Thank you," Jiang Yuan said.

"No problem, our brigade commander said that Captain Jiang deals with major cases, and he specifically instructed us to commit fully," this time, an officer from the Image Reconnaissance Brigade spoke.

On the other end of the line, the people from the Zhengguang Bureau Anti-Drug Brigade looked at each other with solemn expressions.

After all, there was no mistake in it; Jiang Yuan had handled so many significant cases, and it was absolutely right to cooperate fully.

"OK, all set, we’ve organized a review team. It should take about an hour to get some results," explained the captain of the Image Reconnaissance Brigade over the phone.

Jiang Yuan thanked him profusely.

With masks on, direct comparison is no longer possible, but manual searching still yields significant results. The main thing is that identifying suspects doesn’t have to be perfectly accurate; finding a general resemblance will do.

When there are fewer suspects, they can be investigated specifically, or even visited in person.

This is the huge difference between theoretical and practical investigation. Theoretical investigation always seeks "the one solution," whereas practical investigation is straightforward—finding someone who looks sixty or seventy percent similar and knocking on their door is commonplace, especially in cases that seem a little substantive.

"Let’s keep going and check the vehicle checkpoints," Jiang Yuan said, his Level 6 Image Investigation (Trajectory Analysis) skills keeping his ideas flowing.

"So first we’ll check for vehicles with no plates, cloned plates, blurred plates, and temporary licenses?" suggested the Image Investigator from Luo Jin City, offering a habitual recommendation.

"Sounds good," Jiang Yuan agreed, awaiting further action.

Some people act smart by covering their license plates with mud. Such plates, once they pass through a checkpoint, trigger an immediate alarm. The traffic police, who wouldn’t normally check the footage, now have to click and see because of the little red alert.

When conventional image investigation turned up empty, Jiang Yuan added, "Include the vehicles where the faces inside, including the front passenger, are not clear."

"Understood. That would be... 48,568 images," reported the Image Investigator.

Jiang Yuan rubbed his chin. This is what big data is like nowadays—it’s overwhelming. The key is how to process and extract the meaningful data.

"Add a detour analysis," said Jiang Yuan. "Look at vehicles that have passed the same location multiple times on the same day, and see what you find."

Given the prudence of drug dealers, whether driving themselves or having a chauffeur, they’re unlikely to get out of the car immediately upon arrival—they usually scout around first.

This time, the number of vehicles pulled up by the image investigation was much smaller, just seven.

The Image Investigator pulled up the images one by one.

"That’s the one," Jiang Yuan said after a short glance, identifying Niu Er and commanding, "Track this black Sonata! The one with the license plate ending in 778."

"Roger that." The technician from Image Investigation was excited and began tracing the trajectory of the black Sonata on the video.

Soon, the Sonata left the main road and entered a small alley.

On the screen, the car then vanished from sight.

The experts from Luo Jin City’s Image Investigation, being professional, quickly pulled up the surveillance footage of the black Sonata from two kilometers away.

"There, it arrived and then left," Jiang Yuan noted the time and said, "Niu Er must have gotten out here. He likely made a phone call too."

"By the time he made the call, the car had already left the Wufeng area," stated the Image Investigator from Luo Jin City. Once the vehicle was locked in, they could pull up the time of its passing through each checkpoint and even have the software plot the trajectory on a map.

But if someone got out midway, they had to start over. It made several of the Image Investigation staff slightly disappointed.

Jiang Yuan remained unmoved. Some suspects in criminal cases tend to be more vigilant, but from his perspective, it was merely a more interesting form of resistance.

"Niu Er is so cautious, and since he made a phone call in the Wufeng area, he probably wouldn’t stay there. Search for vehicles with a single occupant that left ten minutes after the call ended, within an hour. Include those covering their faces," Jiang Yuan said.

After more operations by Image Investigation, over 1300 additional images came up, but no results were found.

Jiang Yuan pondered for a moment, then said, "In that case, he probably left on foot or by bicycle."

"The checkpoint photos include this area," one of the police officers from Image Investigation reminded him, the previous batch of 2720 images having only just been reviewed.

Jiang Yuan shook his head and said, "He must have taken a back road. He may not know where the checkpoints are, but he could bypass them by taking back roads."

"There is no record indicating his familiarity with the area," one Image Investigator couldn’t help expressing his disagreement over the phone.

In the process of case investigation, no matter the scale, especially with major cases, no level of leadership cares about subordinates’ "offensive" comments. In such high-level cases, they fear lacking clues—having one or two extra investigative directions is no issue.

Moreover, while experience in case investigation is crucial, the flexible thinking of younger individuals is also essential, a fact well-understood by any professional investigator.

At most, if a direction suggested by a young person is difficult, they would just send that individual to investigate, like searching septic tanks, climbing Garbage Mountains, and so forth...

Jiang Yuan wasn’t bothered by the young officer’s retort and simply said, "Niu Er is a drug dealer. He doesn’t use his own ID card or phone in daily life, so whether there’s a record is irrelevant... Right now, we’re focusing on the time issue because Niu Er is on the run. Time is his main concern. I believe he wouldn’t waste time unless necessary."

While saying this, Jiang Yuan marked several points on the map, took screenshots, and sent them to Pang Jidong, saying, "Check the surveillance at these locations. If anything is missing, look for other official surveillance systems or civilian ones."

"Sure, I’ll send someone right away," Pang Jidong accepted the task immediately.

Jiang Yuan then opened a larger map, marked another thirty-something points on the outer circle, and after a while, removed half of them.

"If we can’t find him, check these places next," he said.

Bolstered by his Level 6 Trajectory Analysis, despite scarce information, Jiang Yuan remained exceedingly confident.

The detectives and narcotics officers on both ends of the phone were infected by Jiang Yuan’s confidence, smirking optimistically, while the professional Image Investigators were full of questions: Why did we suddenly switch to this map after everything was going fine?