Khaberni - A Chinese man attempted to use the "Trojan Horse" trick to infiltrate a residential building and steal gold valued at 200,000 yuan (28,000 USD), but was arrested within a week.
The 46-year-old man, nicknamed Zhao, hid in a wooden box and hired a delivery worker to transport the box to the building's exit in Hunan province, central China, on October 9th, in order to evade surveillance cameras.
After entering, Zhao exited the box and followed a woman returning home, claiming he was there "to collect a debt". He then forced her to open her safe, and stole gold pieces totaling 230 grams, valued at more than 200,000 yuan at current market prices, as well as 2,000 yuan in cash. To prevent her from alerting anyone, Zhao forced the woman to ingest sleeping pills. After she passed out, he spent about four hours cleaning the apartment to remove any evidence before returning to the wooden box and calling another delivery service to take the box away.
The woman regained consciousness a few hours later and immediately contacted the police. This was followed by a wide-scale investigation involving over 50 officers who reviewed surveillance recordings and interrogated witnesses, which initially yielded no significant leads.
Eventually, as reported by the "South China Morning Post", investigators discovered that the suspect had entered the building inside the wooden box. They traced Zhao, a Chinese citizen from Hunan living in Zhejiang province, eastern China. While the police did not reveal the specific method used to track down Zhao, comments on the internet suggested that surveillance recordings, logistics data, fingerprints, and phone signals might have been helpful.
On the night of October 18th, the police arrested Zhao and returned him to Hunan, recovering the stolen gold. Zhao admitted that his "Trojan Horse" method was inspired by TV shows, expressing surprise at how quickly the police were able to locate him.
