Animal Detective-Chapter 77: Grand Avenue Gold

Compared to the other constantly updated case files, this one was relatively thin.

Liu Laibin, a Nanjiang local.

He was 42 years old at the time of his death and owned a company called Dadao Gold, which primarily dealt in spot gold trading.

This so-called spot gold trading of his, viewed from a modern perspective, was actually a gray market operation.

His scam involved using telemarketing to invite customers to open accounts on his proprietary platform. He claimed they could engage in T+0 gold futures trading, allowing them to buy, sell, and profit at any moment.

But in reality, this so-called trading platform was one they had built themselves.

Or, more accurately, it was built by their supplier.

The internal trading data could be faked. You would invest your money and might see it continuously grow in value at first, but when you actually made a profit and wanted to cash out, all sorts of restrictions would suddenly appear.

It wouldn’t end until all the money in your account was lost. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Back in 2013, companies like this operated in a regulatory gray area, and many people fell for it.

Liu Laibin started this company in 2010 and ran it for three years. According to the case file, business was good in the first year, and he made a lot of money. In the second year, business began to decline.

This was to be expected.

These kinds of companies were usually about making a quick buck. Once they made enough money, they would immediately move on to a new scheme.

Then, on September 7, 2013.

The workday at his company began at 8:30 AM.

An hour beforehand, the company’s cleaning lady, Sun Min, would arrive to clean up.

While routinely cleaning Liu Laibin’s office, she discovered his body.

There were photos of the scene.

It was a very typical office: a large, solid wood desk with a bookshelf behind it, on which a great number of economics books were pretentiously displayed.

Opposite the desk was a seating area for guests.

As expected, a piece of calligraphy reading "Heaven rewards the diligent" hung on the wall.

To the right, against the wall, there was also a lucky bamboo plant and a wood carving of a great roc spreading its wings.

Liu Laibin’s body was found in front of the safe to the left of his desk. He had been stabbed seven times, and the forensics team speculated the weapon was a common switchblade.

The seven wounds were consistent, and an analysis of the angle and force of the stabs indicated they were all inflicted by the same person.

The fatal wound was the one to the heart, which it had pierced.

The safe at the scene was open, and the cash inside was gone.

Thus, after the preliminary investigation, the case was classified as a robbery-homicide.

The company accountant and Liu Laibin’s wife, Shi Yanhua, confirmed that 340,000 in cash had been stolen.

Once the direction of the investigation was set, the next step was to proceed with a by-the-book investigation.

There were security cameras in the office and at the company entrance, but they had been destroyed.

Investigators theorized that the robber had cut the power.

The security cameras in Jinhui Mansion also yielded nothing, suggesting the robber had cased the building beforehand and found a way to avoid them.

This was 2013, and security cameras were not widely installed.

The forensic autopsy estimated Liu Laibin’s time of death to be between 7:00 and 8:00 PM.

By that time, his employees had already left for the day.

However, Jinhui Mansion housed many companies, meaning there was a lot of foot traffic from all sorts of people, and many employees were working overtime.

The suspect likely used this time window to avoid detection.

Jinhui Mansion was an old office building with multiple exits, and its security was practically nonexistent.

Since the case was being treated as a robbery-homicide, the investigating officer at the time, Qin Chuanwang, focused his investigation on Liu Laibin’s business dealings and social connections.

The perpetrator would have had to know there was money in Liu Laibin’s safe to target him.

By interviewing company employees, Qin Chuanwang discovered something else.

After his company’s primary business faltered, Liu Laibin had started a new venture: providing bridge loans.

Shortly before the murder, Liu Laibin had taken on a deal for a client who needed a two-million bridge loan.

The deal had been brokered by one of his salesmen, Li Weiqin.

Liu Laibin had met with the client several times and had even visited their company to conduct an inspection.

The company’s employees could all attest to this.

Once the deal was settled, the fund transfer was scheduled for September 7th.

This money was wired to a private account under the name Sun Kai, then transferred via online banking to an overseas account, where the trail went cold.

In other words, on the day he was murdered, Liu Laibin not only lost 340,000 in cash but also the two million for the bridge loan.

The investigation revealed that all of Sun Kai’s personal information was fake.

The supposed company that Liu Laibin and Li Weiqin had inspected also turned out to be a fake.

Qin Chuanwang, therefore, reasonably deduced that this Sun Kai had used the bridge loan deal as a pretense to swindle the two million, then robbed Liu Laibin, stealing another 340,000 in cash, and murdered him.

All the clues pointed to this man named Sun Kai.

The information he had provided was, without a doubt, fake.

Qin Chuanwang conducted extensive interviews and tried to investigate Sun Kai’s true identity through various channels, including communication records, surveillance footage, and bank accounts.

But this was 2013, and many information channels weren’t yet integrated, which made investigating no easy task.

As a result, Sun Kai was never found by the time the case was shelved.

The final conclusion was that a fraud ring led by Sun Kai had targeted Liu Laibin. Using the bridge loan deal as a pretext, they scammed him out of two million, then robbed and killed him, making off with 340,000 in cash before disappearing.

And so, the case went cold.

In other words, they had identified a suspect but were simply unable to find him.

They were presumed to be a transient criminal gang, and the overseas account led to speculation that they had some kind of international backing.

Liu Laibin’s wife, Shi Yanhua, refused to accept this result.

She constantly came to cause a scene, her demands direct: catch the murderer and recover the more than two million that was stolen.

Shen Xin put down the case file.

The reason this case went cold was similar to that of many others.

The perpetrators used fake identities, committed the crime while on the move, and then vanished.

It was similar in nature to a random crime of opportunity where someone is killed and the perpetrator flees—exceedingly difficult to investigate.

The reason Ding Yuwei had singled it out was because, over the years, Shi Yanhua had never stopped pressing for updates.

The precinct had reopened the investigation several times, but each attempt had fizzled out.

And as time passed, the chances of solving the case only plummeted.

’The company is gone, the employees left long ago, the lead investigator Qin Chuanwang is retired, and the people who knew the case are gone. How is anyone supposed to investigate now?’

But, just as Ding Yuwei had said, the victim’s family hadn’t given up and was very emotional, fitting her description of a case with significant pressure from the family.

The other case was similar.

A case from 2011: a truck driver, Xiao Hong, was out on a haul when he was found dead on National Highway 319 between Nanjiang and Ji Port.

It was presumed to be a robbery-homicide.

But the crime scene was on a national highway with no surveillance cameras nearby. After a long investigation that yielded no useful clues, it was classified as a cold case.

Like Shi Yanhua, Xiao Hong’s wife would travel from her hometown every so often to ask about the progress of the investigation.

Six years had passed with no results.

"I think this works."

Shen Xin came to his senses and nodded, approving of Ding Yuwei’s method of classification.

’She must be thinking along the same lines as Lv Youwei.’

High pressure from the families, unsolved, and a negative public impact.

"Okay, I’ll proceed this way then." Ding Yuwei nodded and got back to work.

With a workaholic like Ding Yuwei helping out, their progress was countless times faster.

Ten days later, all the case files were organized.

They were sorted into categories, and a report was made to Sun Zhao.

"You went through all of them? This fast?"

Sun Zhao was surprised to hear that the case files were already sorted.

As he recalled, the precinct had a fair number of cold cases—nearly two hundred, it seemed.