Legendary FBI Detective-Chapter 88: Direction of the Investigation

After returning to the office of Investigation Team Five, Luo An decisively...

Went home after work.

After all, Vireness had just told him that the stipulated one-week period starts from tomorrow.

And today, Luo An had spent the morning working with Reid to exterminate a gang, then went to Organized Crime Investigation Division to participate in the interrogation of Robert at noon, and in the afternoon, he went to verify the truth about the laundry shop owner.

Having been busy all day without overtime pay, Luo An decisively chose to finish work for the day.

However, his plan to freeload a meal at Mona's apartment fell through.

After a moment of thought, Luo An accepted Reesi's invitation to visit Reid at the hospital together.

After ensuring that Reid was alright and could be discharged tomorrow, and could return to work the day after tomorrow, Reesi originally wanted to invite Luo An to explore the local culture and people of New York, but Luo An refused.

Because the decoration company responsible for his apartment had sent him another design, hoping Luo An would go and check it out.

"Ha—"

The next day, sitting at his desk, Luo An stretched and let out a big yawn.

"Good morning, agents!"

With a big belly, Augustus pushed the door of the Investigation Team Five office area open wide, walked in with Mona, and then loudly announced:

"A new day has begun! We've got a new case in our hands! Let's all get spirited!"

Slapping his hand on the desk at Reesi's workstation to wake her up, Augustus looked towards William and said loudly:

"William, give us an overview of this series of bank robberies case!"

"Alright, boss."

William, whose desk was piled with a lot of stuff, stood up and picked up the topmost folder, beginning to read aloud for everyone:

"From the beginning of last month to last week, several banks in Queens, Bronx, and Brooklyn District in New York City have been hit by a total of 6 robberies..."

After briefly introducing the case to everyone, William started to distribute a pile of things from the desk to the members of Investigation Team Five:

"These are the surveillance videos from the banks where the incidents occurred, testimonies from bank staff and related witnesses, as well as surveillance footage from the areas surrounding the banks."

Looking at these items, Luoma raised his eyebrows, these seemed to have been brought over by William from Investigation Team Fourteen.

"Good."

Augustus nodded in satisfaction, swiftly glanced at the witness statements, then turned his head to look at Luo An:

"Luo An, what do you think?"

Seeing that the agents of Investigation Team Five were all turning their attention to him, Luo An sighed, picked up a whiteboard marker, and walked to the front of the office area.

"Firstly, the first conundrum: we don't know where the robbers fled to after robbing the banks."

The members of Investigation Team Five nodded in agreement; according to the information, the areas outside several of the banks were severely lacking in surveillance, and the robbers completely disappeared after fleeing the banks.

Only after one of the robberies did a camera on a street corner to the east of the bank capture the images of the robbers fleeing.

"The second conundrum, which is also the most important one."

Holding the whiteboard marker, Luo An continued to write and speak:

"The robbers, upon entering the bank the very first time, used black spray paint to cover the banks' cameras.

Except for the third bank robbery, which had hidden cameras recording the entire process of the robbery, for the other five robberies, we can only reconstruct the entire process of the robbery through the testimonies of various witnesses in the banks."

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"That's right."

Hearing Luo An's words, the agents nodded in unison, Augustus seemed to understand something, and asked with a serious tone:

"Is there any problem?"

"Yes."

Luo An pointed to the text on the whiteboard and said:

"The time the robber actually took to rob the bank was only two and a half minutes.

During this period, the robber demanded that everyone inside the bank lie down on the floor and not raise their heads.

Thus, most of the witness testimonies afterward only described the robber's clothing and the process of the robbery, without having any real contact with the robber."

"No, Luo An."

Upon hearing this, Reesi held up the folder in her hand and said:

"In the six bank robberies, besides the first and the last one, the robber took a female hostage in front of him in the other four incidents, using them to threaten the bank security to lower their weapons, so these four women did actually have contact with the robber."

"You're right, Reesi."

Luo An nodded, but then immediately shook his head and said:

"But you got one thing wrong, it was the robber who initiated contact with these four hostages, not the hostages who initiated contact with the robber."

Hearing Luo An's words, everyone present frowned in unison, not understanding what he meant.

Seeing this, Luo An explained gravely:

"When the robber forcibly took these four female eyewitnesses as hostages, these women were extremely terrified, their attention entirely focused not on the robber but on the bank security opposite them.

Moreover, since they were facing away from the robber and didn't see his face, and since the robber only pointed the gun at their heads without making physical contact, they only knew that the robber was male, very strong, and through the eyes in the mask, that the individual was Caucasian and so forth.

However, this information isn't very useful for us to identify the robber.

But once we catch the robber, this information can then be used in court."

"Alright...okay."

After listening to Luo An, Reesi tilted her head, thought for a moment without finding any issues, and hesitatingly nodded. Then Mona raised her head and asked:

"So, Luo An, after all this, what exactly are you trying to say?"

"It's simple."

Luo An stepped forward, moved all the witness testimonies to one side, and all surveillance footage to another, and then said in a serious tone:

"The process used by Broson's investigation team number fourteen was to conduct large-scale searches, like searching for the robber's tattoos, checking the surveillance cameras near the bank, and interviewing related witnesses.

Except for the hidden camera footage from the third robbery, the surveillance videos from the other five weren't carefully analyzed because of their average quality and short duration.

This time, we need to do the opposite: put more effort on these five surveillance videos, and the witness testimonies, etc., can be put on the back burner."

"What?"

Upon hearing Luo An's words, Mona instantly furrowed her brows and pointed to the computer screen, saying:

"You also know that the surveillance video quality of these banks is average, and the whole process from the robber entering the bank to smearing the cameras with black paint is less than ten seconds. With just these snippets of video, how can we possibly catch the bank robber?"

Augustus, Reesi, and William also frowned and looked at Luo An with the same lack of understanding as to why he would want to do this.

"Two reasons."

Luo An didn't waste words and explained with a serious expression:

"First, large-scale searches like that require a lot of manpower and resources.

Broson's investigation team fourteen doesn't have many people, and they were able to launch a large-scale search in a short period because Broson, in order to crack this case, spared no expense to mobilize his many years of contacts.

Our investigation team five only has ten people, we can neither launch a large-scale search nor do any of us have such contacts."

Augustus's brows were tightly furrowed; his connections were all in the Criminal Justice Department and indeed could not assist with this case.

After listening to Luo An, Mona and Reesi looked at each other and asked, tilting their heads:

"The second reason?"