What's the best way to lure a criminal? From an operation carried out by an ingenious policeman it seems the possibility of a woman's love is the best bait.
A cop in North China's Hebei province caught 66 criminals all by himself in 2014 by posing as a woman looking for love online.
Using the alias Xiao Yun, he began reaching out to fugitives actively. Starting in October 2013, he began locating fugitives online, and started chatting with them, pretending to be a woman searching for true love. After they would "hit it off", he would ask them to meet him in person, and then catch them.
How successful his method proved to be, compared to the traditional methods, can be gauged by the fact that the whole police bureau at a train station in North China's Hebei province was able to apprehend only six fugitives in the whole of 2012.
He said he came up with idea because a large number of fugitives don't work or move around in public often, usually preferring the online world to kill time.
According to him, "making them comfortable and relaxed" is the key to winning their trust, and trust is the first step to make them agree to an offline meeting. To achieve this, he goes through every detail carefully.
In terms of schedule, he contacts the criminals at times that are convenient to the fugitives. "If they work in a shoe factory, or at an electronic factory, I talk to them after work, as the management there is strict, or on weekends. I don't rush them."
He also takes on different personalities to give them a sense of familiarity. For instance, if the criminal said he was a divorced man, the cop too would say that "she" was also a divorcee. Or, if the criminal was rich, he would talk like a gentle and submissive girl, because he assumed the latter always like such types.
"The key is to analyze what he thinks, and likes, and talk like that," he said.
One of the most effective baits is to offer jobs, because most of them are hiding and find it difficult to get their hands on money.
Once he talked with an outlaw for two months before he agreed to an offline meeting, the longest time he tried to induce a fugitive.
"I invited him, a man in his 20s, who lived in Handan city, about 175 kilometers away from me, to visit me several times, but he refused as he did not have money. In the end, I said I would pay for his train ticket, and it was approaching the Lantern Festival, a traditional time for reunion. He could not go home, so came to see me."
"Some criminals are suspicious. They ask questions like, why did you contact me? Why you are you so nice to me and behave so well? But in the long run, most can't resist the lure because they want to be cared," he said.
He has downloaded some women's photos in case they want to see "her", and takes the help of his female colleagues if they want an audio or video chat. Sometimes he just refuses by saying that "someone else was in the room" or it was "not convenient right now."
Xiao Yun became a policeman in 2012, after graduating from college. In 2013, one of his colleagues, who became a policeman in the same year, was rewarded because of his excellent performance in cracking down on criminals. He felt moved, and cracked his brain to find a better way to catch fugitives.
In 2014, he got a first class reward for catching 66 outlaws in that year. The number surpasses all of his colleagues.
