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November 13, 2014

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Home » Metro » Society

Police catch gold chain robber, 18

By Viola Ke | November 13, 2014, Thursday | Print Edition

POLICE have tracked down Tuesday’s jewelry store robber in Jiading District and recovered the two gold chains.

The 18-year-old man, surnamed Li, sprinted out of a jewelry store on Fengzhuang Road with two gold chains after showing interest in buying them.

He put on one of the chains and pretended to look at the other and then seizing his moment, darted out of the store.

The chains were worth more than 40,000 yuan (US$6,531), according to the jewelry store.

Li admitted to the crime and said he did it to pay off gambling debts, police said.

The store’s salesperson, surnamed Mao, who attended Li, said he had been to the store several times on Tuesday before the robbery. She also remembered that Li bought a gold chain worth 24,000 yuan at the store in June.

“He first walked into the store at 9am and came back later couple of times. The last time he entered the store was at 2:45pm when he asked to check the two gold chains,” Mao said.

“He put on one necklace and told me he wants to try the other, but he suddenly ran away,” she said.

Mao chased him but failed to catch him.

Yan Yujie, a police officer in Jiading, said they found that Li got onto a motorcycle after running to Qilianshan Road.

Police found the motorcyclist, who told them that Li did not carry any money with him and got off on Hongsong Road to borrow money from a clothes shop. Li paid the motorcyclist 100 yuan and then entered an entertainment venue nearby.

“We learnt that the suspect once worked in that entertainment venue and later became a frequent visitor. He was seen changing clothes there on Singles Day,” Yan said.

About 1am yesterday, Yan noticed that a man in the back seat of a taxi opposite the venue looked very much like the suspect described by the venue’s owner. “My colleagues and I immediately chased the cab. When the cab stopped at a crossroad, we identified him and detained him.”

Li told police that there was a goldsmith inside the clothes store. He sold one necklace for 17,000 yuan and had spent 2,200 yuan before he was caught.

Li’s mother, who passed away last year, had left 100,000 yuan for him. Before he came to Shanghai from Jilin Province this year, Li’s father had also given him more than 20,000 yuan besides giving him nearly 10,000 yuan every month. He squandered all the money in gambling.

Li was living in a hotel near the entertainment venue. “I also owed the hotel 1,500 yuan and a friend 2,000 yuan,” Li told police. “I used to be a member of a gambling website and lost money there too. I also lost the money I won there.”

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