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Source: CCTV News Client

A man used ants as a tool to cheat and extort restaurants. He traveled to more than 80 regions and committed more than 700 crimes. This is a cross-regional extortion case recently cracked by the Shiyan police in Hubei. The clue of the case came from a report from a restaurant manager at Wudangshan Airport in Shiyan City. A man said he ate ants while dining and then left the scene in a hurry. However, a few days later, the restaurant manager received a complaint from the man, and the other party also demanded 600 yuan in compensation.

Using ants as props to extort money from more than 80 regions

The incident happened on May 27, 2024. The video footage in the public area of ​​the restaurant showed that around 11:50 am, a man with a black backpack came to the restaurant located at the airport for dinner, ordered a dish of stir-fried pork with green peppers at the front desk, and sat down.

The picture shows Rong Mou captured by the surveillance screen

Restaurant Manager Mr. Chen:He came in and placed his order at the bar. He told the staff that he was very hungry and had anemia, and asked the kitchen to prepare his meal as soon as possible.

The man's surname was Rong. A few minutes later, the waiter brought the dishes to Rong, and he began to eat slowly.

Restaurant Manager Mr. Chen:The way he ate was different from what he said when he ordered at the bar. He ate very slowly and didn't seem to be in a hurry or particularly hungry.

The video shows that at first, Rong was eating normally, and there was nothing unusual. However, at the end of the meal, he suddenly reached into the plate of stir-fried pork with green peppers, picked up something, looked at it for a while, and took a photo with his mobile phone. After putting the thing back on the plate, he came to the front desk with the plate of stir-fried pork with green peppers.

Restaurant Manager Mr. Chen:I told the waiter that there were ants in the plate. After putting the plate in that position, I came back to get my bag and left the restaurant.

Man leaves restaurant without discussing compensation after 'find ants' in food

The front desk staff looked at the ant and found it was quite large and intact. The front desk attendant went to the manager to explain the situation, but before they could discuss a solution, Rong had already walked out of the restaurant. Afterwards, Manager Chen got up and went to the kitchen to investigate the source of the foreign object. The chef quickly asked a waiter to chase him out and bring Rong back to discuss how to solve the problem.

Rong said he found ants in his food

Restaurant Manager Mr. Chen:The staff wanted to return the money to him, but he had already left before they could find him.

The restaurant staff chased after him but couldn't find him. Why? As the restaurant was located at the airport, Manager Chen thought Rong might be in a hurry to catch a flight, so he didn't think much about it. However, a few days later, the restaurant received a complaint from Rong.

Pictured: Manager Chen is being interviewed

Restaurant Manager Mr. Chen:I received a telephone complaint at 6:10 pm on May 30. The complaint was from the airport, who called me and said that a passenger had complained that ants appeared when dining there at noon on the 27th, and asked me to communicate with the customer.

A few days later, the man complained to the restaurant and demanded ten times the meal fee as compensation

It turned out that Rong complained directly to the department that manages the restaurant at Wudang Mountain Airport. The management department gave Rong's contact information to Manager Chen and asked him to contact the other party on his own. On the phone, Rong asked Manager Chen for compensation, the amount was ten times the meal fee of 60 yuan, that is, 600 yuan, and he said that he had left the restaurant and refused to discuss it in person. Although Manager Chen felt that there was something fishy about this matter, he still transferred the money to the other party because he did not want to make a big deal out of it. Afterwards, Manager Chen reviewed the matter with other staff members, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that there was a problem, so he chose to call the police for help.

Using the same method, he claimed 200 yuan from another store on the same day.

The police launched an investigation into the case and soon discovered more clues. Video tracking showed that the man took a taxi to the airport restaurant after getting off the train, and soon after leaving, he performed the same trick in another store.

The police officers retrieved videos from public places near the restaurant and found that at around 11:47 a.m. that day, Rong came to the restaurant, but he did not enter the restaurant directly. Instead, he wandered around for a while, then went to the bathroom, came out, and then entered the restaurant. Throughout the process, Rong was slow and leisurely, which was inconsistent with his telling the waiter that he was very hungry when ordering food, and there was no sign of being in a hurry. Therefore, the police traced Rong's movements to an earlier time and found that he took the high-speed rail from another place to Shiyan that day.

Rong's movements captured by surveillance cameras

Yuan Junfeng, a police officer from the Wudangshan Airport Branch of the Shiyan Public Security Bureau:Rong took a taxi directly from the train station to the airport. After entering the airport terminal, he immediately went into the airport restaurant to eat. After having a simple meal in the restaurant, he immediately left the restaurant and took another taxi to leave the airport.

Tian Gang, Political Commissar of Wudangshan Airport Branch of Shiyan Public Security Bureau:At first, we just thought it was an ordinary consumer dispute, but after we called the police and did some preliminary research, we found that this person was neither a passenger boarding the flight nor a passenger picking up passengers at the airport. At that time, I still felt a little suspicious.

Rong entered a dessert shop in Shiyan City

Since Rong was not in a hurry to catch the flight, why didn't he solve the problem on the spot, but waited a few days to come to claim compensation? Moreover, why did he take a taxi from the train station to the airport to eat? The police continued to investigate and found that after leaving the airport, he went to a dessert shop in Shiyan City. Here, a similar plot was played out again.

Mr. Ke, the manager of the dessert shop:He bought one of our sandwich products and ate about half of it. Then he came to our colleague and said that he found foreign objects inside, including dead ants.

Mr. Ke is the manager of the dessert shop. After learning about the incident, he took the initiative to apologize to Rong in order to settle the matter. Rong found that the other party did not suspect anything, so he immediately asked him for 200 yuan in compensation on the spot, and Manager Ke quickly agreed.

Two cases occurred on the same day, and both restaurants were sued by the same person, both because of ants found in the food. Is it just a coincidence?

In the subsequent investigation, the police found that before coming to Shiyan, Rong had also been to the airports in Yichang, Jingzhou and Xiangyang.

Tian Gang, Political Commissar of Wudangshan Airport Branch of Shiyan Public Security Bureau:We contacted the three airports again and found that Rong used the same method to put ants in the food in these three airports and used this as an excuse to make claims. In this way, we can basically determine that this is a case of deliberate placement of foreign objects for extortion and compensation.

Therefore, the Shiyan police set up a special task force to conduct a joint analysis of the cases involving Rong. They first retrieved Rong's movement trajectory for analysis.

The police retrieved Rong's movement trajectory for analysis

Bao Longlin, Director of the Wudangshan Airport Branch of the Shiyan Public Security Bureau:The first time we checked was the first three months. During these three months, he basically traveled all over the country every day, mainly to various airports and large and medium-sized cities. However, he did not stay in each place for long, and sometimes he even left on the same day.

Rong went to so many cities in a short period of time, but never went sightseeing. He just stayed at the airport for a while and left in a hurry. What was the trick? Later, the police found clues in Rong's transaction flow.

The picture shows Rong's transaction flow

Tian Gang, Political Commissar of Wudangshan Airport Branch of Shiyan Public Security Bureau:From his transaction list, it was found that he had a large amount of income in the past year, and there were also many refunds in the notes, including the word "refund" in the summary of the claim.

The task force tracked Rong's movements and found that he went to a hotel in Shenzhen after leaving Shiyan. The police immediately rushed to Shenzhen and launched the arrest operation.

The police found a bag of ants on Rong's body.

Bao Longlin, Director of the Wudangshan Airport Branch of the Shiyan Public Security Bureau:After he was caught in the hotel, a bag of ants was found on him, which was exactly the same as the one he put on the plate when he committed the crime.

The police also found other evidence of Rong's crime at the scene.

Rong's phone contained a large number of photos he had taken of extorting shops.

Tian Gang, Political Commissar of Wudangshan Airport Branch of Shiyan Public Security Bureau:Including on his mobile phone, he also took a lot of photos of himself extorting shops, as well as some settlement agreements for claims. Basically, we have a very clear idea of ​​his criminal behavior.

The suspect was arrested and many details of the crime were revealed

As the suspects were brought to justice, many details of the case were revealed. For example, what preparations would the suspects make and what kind of illusions would they create before blackmailing?

"Ants caught between fingers" deliberately takes their time to eat and pretends to be natural

According to the confession of the criminal suspect Rong, before committing the crime, he would first observe the environment and select a suitable target. After selecting, he would go to the toilet first, hide the ants purchased from the Internet between his index and middle fingers, and then enter the restaurant to eat after everything was ready. When ordering, he deliberately asked the waiter to serve the food quickly in order to create the illusion that he was in a hurry, so as to pave the way for his claim for compensation when he was not at the scene. He ate slowly in order to make his movements of releasing the ants as natural as possible.

Tian Gang, Political Commissar of Wudangshan Airport Branch of Shiyan Public Security Bureau:During the consumption process, he accidentally loosened his index and middle fingers, and an ant fell into the food. He then used this as a threat to blackmail the shop.

Rong was photographed in another store

The police found that Rong was suspected of more than two cases in Shiyan. So why did they not receive any other reports except for the restaurant at Wudang Mountain Airport? The task force sorted out and analyzed the relevant evidence and believed that this was related to the fact that Rong's targets were mostly restaurants located at airports and train stations.

Tian Gang, Political Commissar of Wudangshan Airport Branch of Shiyan Public Security Bureau:We also analyzed his psychology of committing the crime. Because the airport and large supermarkets have a unified management agency, he called the complaint hotline of the restaurant management department and exerted pressure on the merchants through the management agency to blackmail them.

The suspect Rong found that many restaurants would pay compensation to avoid making a big fuss, and many restaurant operators did not realize they were being blackmailed.

The picture shows the chat record between Rong and the store owner

Yuan Junfeng, a police officer from the Wudangshan Airport Branch of the Shiyan Public Security Bureau:In order not to affect their reputation and customer base, and because the compensation amount is not very large, usually just a few hundred yuan, many businesses often choose to settle the matter peacefully and accept the loss.

According to Shiyan police investigation, since 2023, the suspect RongHe committed crimes in more than 20 provinces and 80 prefecture-level cities, involving more than 700 cases and a total amount of more than 100,000 yuan.At present, the case is still under further processing.

In order to keep things quiet, merchants usually choose to transfer money to Rong.

The police remind all merchants that if they encounter such situations,First, call the police in time; second, secure the evidence.For example, restaurant videos and the other party’s transfer transaction records, including chat screenshots, so that the police can better collect and fix evidence and better protect the merchants’ own legitimate rights and interests.

(CCTV reporter Zeng Xiaolei and Li Chengcheng)