Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Jiang Ruolan saved the photo to her phone's photo album.

Then she sent Lu Zheng a message:

"Submit Ma Xiaodong's family situation along with his scholarship application form. Allocate a special scholarship from the Municipal Bureau's Righteous and Courageous Acts Fund, following the proper procedures without giving him special treatment, but also ensuring that this child is not implicated because of his father's actions. The fact that he was able to accept his father's belongings with his head held high is enough for us to do things more thoroughly."

...........

The final report of the New Year's Eve project was officially completed on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

Jiang Ruolan signed the last page, put the more than 300-page case file into a file bag, sealed it, stamped it, and handed it over to the comrades from the provincial department's special task force who came to receive the materials.

On the cover of the case file, the case name column reads "New Year's Eve Series of Murders in Yian City," followed by a series of numbers, indicating that the case has officially entered the judicial process.

Xu Yaozong, Nie Shichang, Luo Bing and other main suspects have been arrested with the approval of the procuratorate, and the case has been transferred for review and prosecution. They will face legal judgment.

After seeing off the provincial department staff, Jiang Ruolan stood at the entrance of the municipal bureau building, watching the bare branches of the few sycamore trees in the courtyard sway slightly in the cold wind.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Yi'an had not yet fully emerged from the festive atmosphere of the Lunar New Year. The red lanterns on the streets had not yet been taken down, and occasionally a few scattered firecrackers could be heard from afar.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket; it was a message from Lu Zheng:

"Ma Xiaodong's scholarship has been approved. It's from the municipal bureau's special fund, and I'll deliver it to him this afternoon. This child ranked third in his grade in the final exams, and his homeroom teacher said he's been working even harder than before."

The photo attached shows Ma Xiaodong standing at the classroom door, holding a report card in his hand, with a slight smile on his lips. It was a smile that a seventeen-year-old boy was trying to force out after experiencing the heaviest blow in his life, a smile that was tinged with a bit of restraint.

Jiang Ruolan stared at the photo for a while, then put her phone back in her pocket and turned back to her office.

On her desk was a newly delivered document—a "Notice on Carrying Out a Special Rectification Campaign Against Organized Crime and Gang-Related Issues in the Construction Industry Across the Province," issued by the provincial department.

This document was issued after Zhou Pei, based on her analysis of regulatory loopholes in the building materials industry in the case closure report she submitted, gave a special report to the department during the special investigation on New Year's Eve, which led to its release.

The document requires public security organs in all cities and counties of the province to work with housing and construction, market supervision and other departments to conduct a three-month systematic investigation of the building materials industry, focusing on cracking down on illegal and criminal activities such as forced buying and selling, monopolistic practices, and violent coercion.

She signed the document, "Read and approved. Please have Comrade Lu Zheng take the lead in formulating the implementation plan for Yi'an City and submit it to me for approval within three days." Then she put the document aside and opened another document.

This document was sent by Zhao Rui—a summary table of public security data for Yi'an City over the past three months.

She turned to the first page, her gaze lingering on a few sets of numbers.

In the months following the verdict in the Shen Wangshan case, Yi'an's public security data experienced a precipitous decline, with the crime rate, number of public security cases, and police reports of fights all hitting their lowest points in nearly ten years.

However, since the end of last year, several key indicators have shown a slight but sustained rebound – cases of provoking trouble increased by 8% month-on-month, cases of intentional injury increased by 5% month-on-month, and cases of forced transactions increased by 12% month-on-month.

These figures are not high on their own, nor are they particularly outstanding among prefecture-level cities in the province. However, when viewed in the context of Yi'an's two-year-long, intensive crackdown on organized crime, this rebound is itself a warning sign.

She turned to the second page, which contained Zhao Rui's classification analysis of the rebound data.

More than half of the cases of provoking trouble occurred at construction sites, building materials markets, and logistics parks; in cases of intentional injury, one of the victims or suspects worked in the construction industry in 40% of the cases; and cases of forced transactions were almost entirely concentrated in the building materials supply sector.

Zhao Rui wrote an analysis at the end of the report:

"Although most of the aforementioned cases are presented as individual cases and are not directly related to each other at the case filing stage, the high degree of consistency in case type, industry distribution, and geographical area suggests the possibility that organized crime groups may be re-activating in the construction and building materials industry. It is recommended that the Criminal Investigation Detachment conduct a systematic review of all public security and criminal cases involving the construction industry in the past three months to screen for any undiscovered related clues."

This passage was written a month ago, just before the Lunar New Year's Eve special operation broke out.

Zhao Rui's intuition based on data preceded the actual occurrence of the murder by a full month.

"Zhao Rui's report was prescient."

At the bureau meeting that evening, Jiang Ruolan opened the report and pointed to the analysis Zhao Rui had written a month earlier, saying, "The New Year's Eve case has confirmed Zhao Rui's judgment. What we need to do now is not to celebrate solving the case—solving three murder cases within twelve hours and bringing all five main suspects to justice is what we should do, not something to celebrate."

What's truly alarming is why Zhao Rui detected the anomaly in the security data a month ago, yet our system failed to react promptly? That's the question we need to reflect on.

After the bureau meeting adjourned, she kept Lu Zheng and Zhao Rui behind, and the three of them held a short meeting in the office.

She instructed Lu Zheng to compile all the evidence materials related to Xincheng Trading from the New Year's Eve special case into an industry analysis report. This wasn't a case report, but rather an "industry loophole analysis" written for departments such as housing and construction, market supervision, and public resource trading centers. The report would explain how Xincheng Trading monopolized the building materials market within six months through contract traps, violent coercion, and bid-rigging, which aspects of the current regulatory system failed, and where firewalls should be set up if a similar group were to infiltrate again using the same methods.

Lu Zheng was stunned for a moment after listening and said that he had never written such a report before.

Jiang Ruolan's answer was simple: "Then start writing now. Criminal police can't just arrest people; after the arrest, they also need to tell others how this hole was dug and how the next hole was sealed."

...............