Chapter 46: The Professional Case Cracker

  Liu and Li brought the restaurant owner and chef back to the Third Brigade, then asked about the source of the beef in the store. In response to this question, the restaurant owner and chef answered very consistently, telling the police officers that the beef in the store was purchased at the market, and they also gave a detailed description of the store and its owner who sold the beef to the police officers.

  According to the two men's descriptions, Liu Li sent someone to investigate the store and found that it was a regular meat sales shop. All the meat sources in the store were traceable, and there were no problems with the origin of the goods or the channels.

  After seeing the result, Wang Mingzhong asked Liu Li, "It has been 48 hours since the interrogation started. Should we release the restaurant owner and chef? If we continue to interrogate them, it will exceed the limit of summons for interrogation."

  Upon hearing this, Liu Li shook his head without hesitation. He instructed Wang Mingzhong to go to the county bureau's legal affairs department to complete the formalities and extend the interrogation time by 96 hours. During this period, the newly appointed Winter Chao continued to interrogate the two men.

  At the same time, Liu Li sent Zhang Tao to investigate the social circle of the restaurant owner and see if anyone's behavior was abnormal during the period when the restaurant owner was detained for questioning. In addition, let Zhang Tao check the accounts and sales volume inside the restaurant.

  Finally, Liu Li firmly told Wang Mingzhong and Zhang Tao: "The beef cooked in this restaurant must be problematic. As long as we can crack the confessions of these two people, there will definitely be unexpected gains. Everyone, let's work harder."

  Wang Mingzhong didn't know where Liu Li's confidence came from. Insisting that the restaurant owner had a problem, seeing Liu Li's attitude was so resolute, Wang Mingzhong could only follow orders and hand over the interrogation work to Ren Dongchao, who was good at criminal investigation. He went to the Legal Affairs Department to apply for an extension of the interrogation procedure.

  On the third day of the interrogation, at noon, Liu Li came to the interrogation room. The restaurant owner sat on the interrogation chair with a tired face, while Ren Dongchao and Zhao Jie were seriously attacking his psychological defense.

  He picked up the interrogation record and took a look, seeing that there was no record on it, which meant that the restaurant owner had not confessed to anything yet. Liu Li walked in front of the restaurant owner and said calmly: "Boss, your name is Chen Fugui, right?

  You are 43 years old and have been running a restaurant for over two years. During this time, the business in your store has always been very deserted, with few customers going to eat there. The house where you opened the restaurant is rented, with a monthly rent of 5,000 yuan, which is paid once every three months.

  I've seen your bill, and your monthly income is at least over a thousand yuan, but no more than three thousand yuan. This amount of money isn't even enough for a chef's salary, let alone other expenses like water, electricity, coal, and gas.

  "The little money you earn can't even cover your expenses. Judging from the poor state of your restaurant, it should have closed down long ago. But you've managed to keep it open for two years and haven't even delayed paying rent once. I'm really curious, where did you get the funds to pay rent and the chef's salary?"

  Upon hearing this, Chen Fugui looked up at Liu Li and then slowly closed his eyes, responding in a calm tone: "I'm a man of good credit, I don't like to owe debts. The rent is money I took from home, the chef's salary is also money I took from home. What? Is that against the law?"

  "Haha……your family? When I was investigating your restaurant's accounts, I also sent someone to investigate your family." Liu Li said with a smile that wasn't quite a smile: "Your wife divorced you three years ago, you have a son, and the court gave him to your ex-wife.

  At the time of your divorce, the court divided up your assets and debts. After the division, you only had 3,162 yuan in funds left in your account. Later on, you never found formal employment, so you didn't have any other sources of income.

  "After our investigation, your old home now has nothing but five brick-tiled houses left. As for the funds in your account, there are currently 876 yuan and 53 cents. Where did you get the money to pay the rent and the chef's salary?"

  After Liu Li's words fell, Chen Fugui's eyes twitched slightly, but he still closed his eyes and sat there without saying a word. Liu Li didn't get angry: "You're really lucky, nowadays police can't beat people up. If we go back thirty years ago, it was still allowed to use torture to extract confessions, with your attitude, you'd probably be beaten."

  "Police comrades, what do you want me to confess?" At this time, Chen Fugui looked at Liu Li with a wronged expression: "Right, my family really doesn't have money, but can't I borrow some? For the sake of face, I insisted on not letting the restaurant go bankrupt. When it was time to pay the rent, I borrowed money from friends to pay the rent. Is this not allowed?"

  I still don't know why you arrested me. After I came, you asked me where I bought the beef from. Is that beef fake? Even if it's fake, go find the one who sold the beef, what do you want with me?

  "I've already told you where I buy the beef, you can go check it out and see if there's a problem with his beef. All my beef is bought from him, if there's any issue just investigate him directly, please let me go."

  After seeing the look of grievance on Chen Fugui's face, Liu Li smiled slightly and pulled out an account book from his pocket, placing it on the interrogation table: "This is your store's account book, which records all your business transactions and procurement information."

  You often buy beef from a regular butcher, but the amount you purchase per month is only about 10 kilograms. This 10 kilograms of beef can only make about 10 servings, yet your account book clearly records that this month, 38 servings of braised beef were sold.

  I found it interesting, so I took a closer look at the account book and discovered something interesting. That is, in this store, when there were fewer customers, you could sell 17 or 18 portions of beef per month, but when there were more customers, you could sell over 50 portions of beef.

  "May I ask, you only purchase about 10 kilograms of beef per month, but how can you sell so many portions of beef? Where did the extra beef come from that is not recorded in this account book?"

  "This...this..." Chen Fugui was somewhat stunned by the question, he mumbled for a while, but didn't know how to explain the situation, in his anxiety, some cold sweat appeared on his forehead.

  Watching Chen Fugui's reaction, Liu Li quietly came to Chen Fugui's back, he stuck his head next to Chen Fugui's ear, his tone full of temptation: "Give up, don't have any illusions, I already know, your restaurant is just a slaughterhouse."

  At this point, Liu Li suddenly raised his voice and shouted loudly: "Chen Fugui, your chef has already surrendered, do you still want to resist stubbornly? Lao Liu, Hei San, Liang Touzi, Da Guang, they have all been controlled by us.

  They are next door now, if you don't strive for leniency, once they have finished confessing, you will never have the opportunity again. At that time, you will be in prison for a lifetime, facing violent criminals in the cell every day, being beaten and oppressed by them every day.

  "Now, as long as you confess clearly what you know, you can make amends and atone for your crimes. I guarantee that all this will be far away from you. Time is running out, whoever confesses first will be the one to make amends, if you're late, there won't be another chance. Tell me, are you going to confess or not?"

  "I confess... I confess... I'll try to make amends." When Liu Li said that the chef had confessed, Chen Fugui's mind was already somewhat panicked. But when Liu Li read out those few names, Chen Fugui's half-believing and half-doubting heart suddenly became flustered, because those people were his accomplices. In the end, he was completely overwhelmed by Liu Li's aura, and his psychological defenses were thoroughly breached.

  After venting, Chen Fugui confessed to the crime of stealing and slaughtering cattle with others. Some were responsible for stealing, some for slaughtering, and some for transporting and selling the slaughtered beef.

  At the same time, he also explained why he maintained the restaurant, which was to facilitate the slaughter of stolen cattle. As the owner of the slaughterhouse, he would receive an extra commission for each head of cattle slaughtered, and Chen Fugui used that money to gamble.

  After Chen Fugui confessed to the crime, Liu Li immediately led his team to arrest people according to the names provided by Chen Fugui. Because Zhang Tao had been monitoring earlier, several other main culprits of the cattle theft gang were caught without exception.

  After capturing all the criminal suspects, Ren Dongchao asked Liu Li with some doubts. Before Chen Fugui confessed, how did he know the names of those criminal suspects? At that time, the chef in the restaurant had not surrendered, and the criminal police team had not yet confirmed the information of several other suspects, but Liu Li called out the nicknames of those people, successfully breaking through Chen Fugui's psychological defense line.

  After hearing this question, Liu Li smiled and said: "I was deceived at that time. Because after Chen Fugui was secretly detained and interrogated, Lao Liu, Hei San, Liang Touzi, Da Guang, these few people repeatedly dialed Chen Fugui's mobile phone.

  Because no one answered, several people took turns sending messages to Chen Fugui's mobile phone, asking where he was. Although I didn't know what those people were called, but looking at the nicknames stored in the address book, I felt that these people had a problem, because they were too nervous about Chen Fugui's disappearance.

  "So I was certain that these few people were Chen Fugui's accomplices, which is why they deceived Chen Fugui in the interrogation room. Who would have thought that I was actually wrong? Haha... just good luck, if my judgment was incorrect, then it would be a different story."

  "Deputy captain, you're really bold to dare to deceive like this. Fortunately, your judgment was correct, otherwise the consequences would be unthinkable." After listening to Liu Li's explanation, Wang Mingzhong's face flashed with a hint of speechlessness, and after a pause, he continued to ask: "There's still one thing that I just can't figure out. How were you so certain that Chen Fugui was problematic? And how did you know the beef in his restaurant was stolen?"

  As for Wang Mingzhong's question, Liu Li smiled and then mysteriously told him: "This is a secret..."