Since April this year, a series of burglaries have occurred in Haigui Garden residential community on Haijing Street, Wujiashan district, Dongxihu. Strangely, when police reviewed surveillance footage from building entrances and stairwells, they couldn’t find any suspicious recordings of thieves in action. Officers decided to set up an ambush in Haigui Garden, but after nine days and nights of stakeouts, no thieves showed up.
At around 3 a.m. yesterday, officers spotted a taxi pulling over near the community, and three men got out and quickly scaled the outer wall of the compound by hand before running toward a high-rise residential building. In no time, the three thieves actually climbed up to the sixth floor by clinging to water pipes, balconies, or security bars, breaking into apartments via windows.
The crime unit officers witnessed the scene clearly. They immediately organized building security to surround the thieves from different directions, trapping them at height. Then, searching floor by floor, the officers caught all three on the spot.
Investigations revealed that the suspects — Guo, 29, Luo, and others — were residents of Yuexi County, Sichuan, and all had a history of drug use. To carry out their crimes, Guo, Luo, and the other two had been practicing freehand rock climbing. In April this year, they came to Wuhan and committed over 30 thefts in areas including Jianghan, xZkou, Wuchang, Hanyang, and Dongxihu. Relying on their free-climbing skills, they stole hundreds of thousands of yuan worth of property, sometimes committing as many as four high-rise thefts in one night, each taking no more than ten minutes.
Police are now tracking down other members of the gang.