Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Lu Zheng closed his notebook, his expression turning serious. "Director Jiang, Nie Shichang and Xu Yaozong's foray into the building materials industry is just one of their cards. Speedy Logistics is another. They started building their cross-border logistics network even before Shen Wangshan fell from power."

"Then let's dig down along this line."

Jiang Ruolan stood up and walked to the map of Yi'an City hanging on the wall.

Her finger started from the location of the East City Logistics Park and slid south along the marked freight route, all the way to the border at the edge of the map.

Speedy Logistics' main route is from Ngam to Southeast Asia, a cross-border land transport route that passes through Yunnan before exiting the country.

She knew this road all too well—Zhou Haipeng was arrested on the Yunnan border, and at the time, he had a hand-drawn map of the border trails and a homemade grenade in his luggage.

Although Zhou Haipeng's drug supplier, Luo Xiuhua, has been arrested in Chongqing, she confessed during interrogation that her drugs came from overseas. Her domestic transportation network was mainly concentrated between mining areas in Yunnan and Guizhou, and Yi'an was an important transit point on this transportation route.

After Shen Wangshan's death, this line of communication went quiet for a time, but it was never completely severed.

"If Express Logistics is using the convenience of cross-border freight as a cover to engage in more covert crimes—such as drug smuggling—then the person who was tortured to death may have encountered a problem during a shipment. Or perhaps he saw something he shouldn't have seen, wanted to report it, and was discovered."

Jiang Ruolan turned around and said, "Check all the freight bills and customs declarations of Suda Logistics for the past six months, focusing on cross-border routes to Yunnan. At the same time, conduct a comprehensive comparison of the deceased's DNA sample with the national missing persons database, expanding the scope to surrounding provinces."

Two days later, the DNA comparison results came back.

The deceased's DNA matched perfectly with that of Fang Dayou, a missing person reported by a police station in Shiqiao County, Yian City, two months earlier.

Fang Dayou, 48 years old, was a native of Shiqiao County. Before his death, he ran a small auto repair shop in Shiqiao County.

His wife reported to the police station two months ago that he had received a phone call one afternoon and then left home, and had never returned.

The police station registered it as a regular missing person case. Since Fang Dayou had no prior criminal record or financial disputes, the police initially judged that he might have run away from home due to family conflicts.

The police report only contained five short lines, and it didn't even clearly record what clothes he was wearing when he went out.

Jiang Ruolan placed the missing person report and the forensic report side by side on the table.

Fang Dayou, the owner of an auto repair shop in Shiqiao County, was called out by phone two months ago. He was then locked up somewhere and subjected to systematic torture—having his fingernails pulled out, being burned, beaten, and finally strangled to death with an electric wire. His body was dumped in an abandoned textile factory in the east of the city.

The piece of cloth he bit off the murderer before he died came from the work clothes of Suda Logistics.

The actual controller of Suda Logistics is Nie Shichang's Zhongyuan Investment.

Where is Fang Dayou's auto repair shop located in Shiqiao County?

Jiang Ruolan asked.

Lu Zheng tapped his finger on the map: "Shiqiao County, Chengguan Town, is close to the national highway. From Shiqiao, take the national highway south, and you'll be heading towards Yunnan."

"Fang Dayou's wife said he left after receiving a phone call. We checked his call records for the three months before his disappearance, focusing on whether he had any calls with Suda Logistics or related personnel. In addition, we sent people to his auto repair shop in Shiqiao County to find out which customers he usually worked for and whether he had any regular cooperative fleets."

The results of the investigation in Shiqiao County were reported the following noon.

Fang Dayou's auto repair shop is located on the side of the national highway in Chengguan Town. The signboard has long been faded. The shop is small, with only two work bays. In addition to taking odd jobs from the surrounding villagers, he mainly makes money by providing emergency repairs for passing trucks.

His wife said that in the period before Fang Dayou disappeared, a gray truck with English words printed on it came to the shop several times. The license plate was from Yi'an.

The driver of that car was a young man who spoke with an Yi An accent. He was very generous and always paid in cash for repairs, without asking for a receipt.

Fang Dayou's wife didn't know which company the car belonged to, but she remembered the English lettering on the car—although she didn't know English, she traced the shape of the letter.

The police officers handling the case took a picture of the words she had drawn and sent it back to the municipal bureau. When they compared it with the logo on the work clothes of Suda Logistics, the font, size, and color matched perfectly.

"Fang Dayou repaired that car several times; he may have discovered something inside that he shouldn't have."

Lu Zheng said, "In cross-border freight, if drugs or other contraband are smuggled in the vehicle, it's possible to be discovered during repairs. Fang Dayou noticed something amiss, and then he made a choice—to report it or to remain silent. If he had chosen to report it, then the phone call was from the person who had arranged to meet him."

Jiang Ruolan picked up Fang Dayou's missing person report and read it again.

The report was filed before Xu Yaozong's New Year's Eve operation concluded, while Fang Dayou's body was dumped in an abandoned factory in the east of the city on the 18th day of the first lunar month.

This means that during the time he was detained and tortured, he spanned the entire investigation process of the New Year's Eve case.

After Nie Shichang and Xu Yaozong were arrested, Suda Logistics lost its behind-the-scenes mastermind, but the grassroots execution level did not immediately stop operating.

They may have received instructions, or they may simply be continuing to do what they're supposed to do out of habit—eliminating hidden dangers, cutting off leads, and erasing the last person in the know from the world.

"There's another issue we need to clarify. The driver from Suda Logistics—the young man who drove the gray truck to Fangdayou's shop for repairs."

Fang Dayou's wife said he "speaks with an Yi An accent," is tall and thin, in his twenties, and appears to have a tattoo on his left arm. This person is very likely the direct perpetrator of Fang Dayou's murder, or at least a member of the gang involved.

Jiang Ruolan wrote down these characteristics in her notebook, then said to Lu Zheng, "Go to Suda Logistics and retrieve all the drivers' files, focusing on those who match these physical characteristics. If we find this person, we can find the location where Fang Dayou is being held, and who is behind him."

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