After taking the documents handed over by Wang Dachuan, Xu Mo gave them a quick glance.
He discovered that all the missing persons were girls between sixteen and twenty-four years old.
These girls shared one common trait - they were all quite attractive, falling into the category of what most people would consider beautiful.
"All these missing person cases were reported in the last three days? Thirteen missing in three days, that's way too many," Xu Mo said after reviewing the materials, placing them on the desk before turning to Wang Dachuan. "Why weren't these cases investigated when they were first reported? After three days, if these girls were actually trafficked, they could be in danger by now..."
Bringing this up, Wang Dachuan's face clouded with worry as he sighed.
"Brother, you're new here, so there are some things you don't understand. Missing person cases are special, different from homicides or thefts. Normally, you can't file a missing person report until forty-eight hours have passed. Besides, disappearances don't necessarily mean kidnapping - there's a high probability they're just runaways, or they're refusing to contact their families due to arguments, or other reasons. Kidnapping is actually quite rare. Most missing person cases reported to us turn out to be runaways or people simply choosing not to contact their parents."
"We see so many similar cases, several every month. Plus, most of the department has been busy with the murder case lately, so when these missing person reports first came in, we didn't pay much attention. We just sent a few officers to look for them. Who knew we'd get more and more cases over these three days - over a dozen cases in three days, all girls, and the officers we sent out couldn't find any trace of them. That's when we realized something wasn't right."
At this point, Wang Dachuan paused, showing signs of remorse.
"Though it was definitely our oversight. If only we had noticed something was wrong earlier."
Seeing this, Xu Mo quickly consoled Wang Dachuan: "It's okay, with today's advanced surveillance network, we'll definitely be able to find these missing people."
Just then, Han Fei walked out of his office.
Seeing that almost everyone had arrived,
Han Fei spoke up: "Everyone, come over here for a moment. There's something we need to discuss."
Everyone gathered around.
Han Fei stood in the middle of the crowd and used magnets to attach a stack of photos to the whiteboard.
"These are all the missing persons from the cases we've received over the past three days. They're all female, and we haven't found any of them yet - not a single one. I suspect this is the work of an organized human trafficking gang."
After saying this, he proceeded to post another stack of photos next to each of the first photos.
"These photos show the last time each of these girls appeared on surveillance cameras. After these moments, they were never captured on camera again. All these locations are somewhat remote, the kind of places where few people pass by at night. All disappearances occurred after nine o'clock at night, and without exception, all victims were walking alone at night, with no companions."
"The actual kidnapping scenes weren't captured on camera, which was likely intentional by the trafficking gang. They deliberately avoided the cameras when targeting lone women."
After finishing, Han Fei added one more point.
"The higher-ups are taking these disappearances very seriously. They've given us one week to solve this case, eliminate this criminal gang, and rescue the victims. I'll share all the girls' information and their last surveillance footage in the group chat. Everyone needs to examine everything carefully, don't miss any details. We need to solve this case quickly, rescue these girls, and capture this entire criminal organization!"
"Yes, sir!" The officers' spirits were high.
Mainly because human traffickers were particularly despised.
They were among the most hated criminals.
For their own selfish gain, they treated people as commodities. The actions of human traffickers had destroyed countless previously happy families and the potentially bright futures of these young women. It was utterly unconscionable!
To quickly investigate this criminal gang and rescue these girls, the officers didn't waste any time. They quickly returned to their workstations and began reviewing the content Han Fei had shared in the group chat.
Their main focus was on reviewing the surveillance footage.
As for the victims' profiles, they only gave them a quick glance.
After all, the victims' information wasn't particularly useful - the surveillance footage was what mattered.
The surveillance footage Han Fei shared was his compiled collection of the last moments each victim was captured on camera before disappearing.
These surveillance clips all held potential value.
There was always the possibility that the perpetrators might appear in these footage as well.
If they could spot any suspicious individuals or vehicles in the surveillance footage, it would greatly help their investigation.
Initially, the officers thought this case wouldn't be too difficult to solve.
Since there were already more than a dozen missing persons, they had over a dozen surveillance clips to examine.
If they could find the same people or vehicles appearing in multiple clips, those would likely be their suspects.
However, when they actually started investigating, they immediately realized they had been too optimistic.
In these dozen or so surveillance clips, they couldn't find any people or vehicles that appeared in multiple recordings. There was zero overlap between the people and vehicles appearing in different clips.
The criminals were very familiar with the locations of these cameras... They had completely avoided them!
"This is going to be tough. We don't have any leads..." After watching surveillance footage for over an hour, Wang Dachuan's eyes were strained, and he hadn't found anything suspicious.
He glanced over at Xu Mo.
To his surprise, Xu Mo was still reviewing the footage.
Wang Dachuan thought Xu Mo's pace was quite slow - how had he not finished watching that small amount of footage after an hour? He moved closer: "I've already watched all the surveillance footage Han Fei sent, but didn't find anything suspicious. Have you noticed anything suspi-"
Before he could finish his sentence, Wang Dachuan was stunned.
The surveillance footage on Xu Mo's computer was flashing by at an incredible speed - Wang Dachuan could only see blurred images.
What playback speed was he using?
"Can you actually see anything at that speed?"
"Yes, I can," Xu Mo replied while continuing to watch the footage. "There weren't many clues in those surveillance clips, so I hacked into the cameras within several hundred meters of each location and checked those too. I also looked at the footage from the days leading up to the incidents. Combining all that, I've made some small discoveries."
How the hell could he see anything clearly? Wang Dachuan forced himself to watch for a few more moments but still couldn't make anything out - he could only see blurry afterimages.
Not only could he not see clearly, but the footage on Xu Mo's computer screen was playing so fast it made him dizzy, giving him a headache.
Could Xu Mo really see clearly? He'd checked the surrounding cameras too? And he'd reviewed footage from the days before the incidents?
That had to be an exaggeration - how could anyone review so much footage in just an hour? Wang Dachuan was skeptical: "You really found something? What did you find?"