SOTC Chapter 20

Tanyang County is a medium-sized county town about thirty kilometers away from Yulin County, and also the location of the debt-related murder case involving Zhao Yangfu.

Xue Yan drove to the Tanyang County Public Security Bureau early in the morning. After parking the car, he circled the entrance of the Public Security Bureau a few times before walking in.

The person responsible for receiving Xue Yan was an old police officer who had worked in the bureau for more than twenty years, surnamed Ye, named Ye Baoxin.

As soon as he saw Xue Yan, he warmly greeted him, shaking hands and saying –

“Hello, hello, the higher-ups have already explained things here. My surname is Ye, you can just call me Lao Ye.”

“Okay, I am Xue Yan, the deputy captain of the Criminal Police Squadron of Yulin County, currently acting as the captain. I am here today mainly to investigate a usury debt-related murder case that occurred in 2006, and I hope to get your assistance.”

Xue Yan spoke very politely, which gave Ye Baoxin a very good first impression of him, and he gradually became more enthusiastic in his speech.

“It’s easy to say, it’s right for us to help if a brother county has a case to investigate. I also participated in the case you mentioned, but because the time has been a bit long, I can’t remember many of the details. Why don’t we go to the archives to take a look at the files from that year first, what do you think?”

“Sure, then I’ll trouble you.”

Xue Yan thanked him and followed Ye Baoxin towards the archives.

Soon, Ye Baoxin found the files of the case from that year. He first took them in his hand and looked through them roughly, then handed them to Xue Yan.

“This is the file. I’ll take a look first. If I have anything I want to ask, I can ask you at any time.”

“Okay.”

Xue Yan responded and immediately sat down at the table and chairs in the archives, carefully examining them.

Time passed by minute by minute, and as Xue Yan read more deeply, the case from that year resurfaced.

In the early 21st century, with the economic take-off brought about by reform and opening up, many small county towns saw the emergence of a small group of people who wanted to start businesses, and it was precisely for this reason that illegal lending and underground banks were very popular at that time.

The deceased was named Dai Chang, male, 38 years old.

He used to run a clothing and hat processing factory. Due to capital turnover problems, he borrowed about 60,000 cash from a usury company at the time, but in the past year, the principal and interest had turned into 200,000.

Dai Chang was unable to repay the amount, so the usury company sent people to demand it, and this tragedy occurred in the scuffle.

Xue Yan noticed two very important details in this file.

The first is that whether Dai Chang contacted the usury company at the time or obtained the loan, it was all done through Zhao Yangfu.

In other words, Zhao Yangfu appeared to be the person in charge of the usury company in front of Dai Chang, but before the incident, he suddenly became a financial officer in the company.

The second is that after the incident, the usury company pushed the main responsibility to the debt collection company that was outsourced at the time, and provided corresponding contract certificates, which objectively exempted it from the main responsibility for the debt collection leading to the death of the person.

In the end, the result of the case was that the registered legal persons of the two companies correspondingly assumed the main and secondary responsibilities, and the debt collector who caused the victim’s death due to debt collection was sentenced to negligent homicide and assumed the corresponding criminal responsibility.

As for Zhao Yangfu, his name was never mentioned again in the entire file, as if this person had disappeared out of thin air.

When Xue Yan put down the file, a full two hours had passed.

Ye Baoxin was still patiently sitting aside, and only after seeing Xue Yan put down the file did he ask –

“How is it, are there any other questions?”

“I want to know about Zhao Yangfu, why didn’t you continue to investigate him in the end? You should know that most of the legal persons of similar usury companies are nominally responsible for taking risks. Zhao Yangfu is nominally an accountant, but how could an accountant be responsible for actually lending and contacting?”

Xue Yan rubbed his nose wearily and asked Ye Baoxin.

“We did notice this matter you mentioned at the time, and we also investigated Zhao Yangfu.”

Ye Baoxin replied.

“And then?”

“There were no results. The usury company was nominally a regular company, and Zhao Yangfu also had a labor contract with it. The scope of Zhao Yangfu’s responsibility was to assess the financial ability of the borrowers and deliver the loan amounts. As for the process in between, there was no evidence to show that he had participated in it. We also verified the same information through Zhao Yangfu’s bank account. The usury company would give Zhao Yangfu a salary of about 6,000 yuan per month, and other than that, all of Zhao Yangfu’s accounts in his name did not have any extra income. During the trial of the case, he also insisted that he did not know that the company he belonged to was engaged in illegal activities, and he even gave the victim’s family more than 20,000 yuan in compensation at one time, which was forgiven by the family, so we did not file a lawsuit against this person, and we had no position to sue him.”

Ye Baoxin told the truth about what he knew, which made Xue Yan dumbfounded.

“No, Lao Ye, wasn’t our investigation of this case a bit too hasty at the time? Zhao Yangfu, a cashier, can actually contact customers himself and transfer the funds to the customers. This kind of thing is simply unheard of. And he said that he didn’t know that he was working in a usury company, and we believed it? How could anyone not know what their company is doing…”

“We understand what you said, but evidence is needed to handle a case. We all felt that Zhao Yangfu was suspicious at the time, but the problem is that there was no evidence. Whether it was bank statements, telecommunications call records, there was no evidence to point to him as an informed person or even a participant in the company. Even if we suspected him more, it was impossible to continue the investigation.”

Ye Baoxin showed a look of embarrassment.

Xue Yan was in someone else’s territory, so it was inconvenient to get angry as casually as in the past, so he could only hold it back, and then took big gulps of water from his teacup.

“What about the debt collection company? Did we investigate that company?”

“Of course we investigated it. As a result, it was a newly registered company, and the members were some local and out-of-town gangsters. The legal person was the old man of the gangster who took the lead. Before the incident, this company only undertook business from this usury company. We also interrogated that gangster, but the result was that we didn’t ask anything.”

“Heh, that’s amazing. It looks like there are loopholes everywhere, but in reality, there are no flaws.”

Xue Yan sneered, but did not continue to ask.

He could see that Ye Baoxin was also a little embarrassed by his questioning.

Obviously, he also hoped to pursue the case to the end, but he did encounter insurmountable difficulties.

Ye Baoxin nodded repeatedly when he heard Xue Yan say that.

“Who says it isn’t? Any case that can be investigated, we will definitely pursue it to the end, but sometimes it is indeed a last resort. If this case doesn’t end, the victim’s factory will not be able to enter the judicial protection program and receive bankruptcy protection. There are seven or eight people in his family waiting to eat, and there are a lot of creditors outside. We insisted on investigating for another month, but we couldn’t find any clues related to the actual operator of the usury company, so we had to choose to close the case in the end.”

“Then about Zhao Yangfu, do you know where he went afterwards?”

Xue Yan asked one last question, but the result was a little disappointing.

Ye Baoxin shook his head at him, and said with some embarrassment –

“I only know that he left our county later, as for where he went… Alas, it was not like now that everything is connected to the Internet, and it is not so easy to find out where a person is going, and we have no position to continue investigating Zhao Yangfu.”

Ye Baoxin had already said it very euphemistically, and Xue Yan knew that he would not get any results if he asked any more questions.

So he stood up, shook hands with Ye Baoxin again, and said some polite words.

“Thank you very much. The information provided here is very helpful for your investigation. If possible, I also look forward to continuing to cooperate with you in the future.”

“It’s easy to say, it’s easy to say! Don’t sit down for a while?”

“No, I have other things to do.”

“Then you’re busy, I’ll see you off.”

“Okay.”

The previous conversation had not been of much help to Zhao Yangfu’s case. On the way back to Yulin County, Xue Yan kept thinking about a question. Zhao Yangfu seemed to be a perfect shield, but he didn’t think that Zhao Yangfu was the mastermind behind these cases.

Whether it was the case in the past or the current case.

If a person is involved in too many things, he will always show some flaws.

But Zhao Yangfu has no flaws, this feeling is like an invisible hand is pulling him, so that he is constantly dancing on the stage, performing a perfect performance.

But how can you make a perfect person show flaws?

Xue Yan had never encountered such a problem. He had never hoped to see Gu Zheng as much as he does now.

Because on the road of simulating the thoughts of suspects and guessing their psychology, no one can do it more thoroughly and professionally than Gu Zheng.

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