Gang targets bus passengers
By Ni Yinbin and Yan Xuewen |
September 6, 2012, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FOREIGNERS taking long distance buses are being warned to take extra care of their cash following the arrest of a gang member who admitted to a number of thefts from sleeping passengers.
Police in Zhejiang Province said yesterday that they had detained a man surnamed Ma who had stolen at least US$119,000 in cash from an Egyptian businessman. An accomplice surnamed Xu and a third member of the gang were still at large.
Ma is said to have confessed to stealing US$24,000 on the same route two weeks before and claimed to have committed many similar thefts.
On August 21, the businessman found the cash was missing from his case when the bus stopped at the Wangdian service station on Hukun Expressway on its way to Yiwu.
"Though passengers invariably take a nap during long distance travel, foreigners tend to be less cautious as to put bags containing a large sum of money on the luggage rack," Wu Yongquan, a police officer at Wangdian police station said.
Because of the language barrier, foreign passengers are more credulous than native Chinese, making them targets of the gang, Wu said.
On getting on the bus, the suspects asked the victim to sit on the second last row. "Not understanding the instructions on the ticket, he mistook them for conductors," said a friend of the victim.
One of the suspects then made sure he sat behind the potential victim.
When the passenger dozed off, the gang would go through his case, Wu said.
They would change any foreign currency they found in another city the following day.
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