Wang Dachuan took the dashcam from the man.
After copying the recorded footage to his computer, he returned the dashcam to him.
Initially, the man wanted to know what case the police were investigating.
But how could they let him see that?
When police are investigating cases, they can't leak information to the outside world.
After all, before a case is solved, anyone could be the perpetrator.
Even police officers themselves aren't exempt - for instance, if an officer has any connection to a case, they must recuse themselves and cannot be involved in the investigation.
Wang Dachuan reminded him gently: "Mr. Li, thank you for your help and understanding, but I apologize, the case details need to remain confidential, so..."
"I understand, I understand!" the man nodded quickly. "I actually have something to attend to, so I'll head out now. If you need anything else, just let me know - I'll fully cooperate!"
With that, the man left the police station without looking back.
Wang Dachuan immediately opened the dashcam footage he had just copied.
After finding the relevant timestamp, he started watching it together with Xu Mo.
That night, the car had been parked in an ideal position, directly facing the road where the victim was kidnapped, and the dashcam had recorded everything.
"That girl in the long dress must be the victim!" Wang Dachuan pointed at the figure appearing on the computer screen.
"That's her," Xu Mo nodded.
They continued watching.
In the video footage, the girl was initially walking normally, but when she reached an alley entrance, she seemed to have been called by someone, or perhaps something caught her attention, causing her to look inside.
After hesitating for a few seconds, she walked into the alley.
She never came out again.
About a minute later, a van drove out of the alley and sped away.
"That must be the vehicle!" Wang Dachuan pointed at the van in the video footage.
But being cautious, he continued watching more of the surveillance footage.
After playing another half hour of video at increased speed, he still didn't see the girl exit the alley.
Wang Dachuan finally concluded: "It was definitely that van. The perpetrator kidnapped the victim and used the van to transport her."
"That's enough, let's rewind and check the license plate," Xu Mo said.
Wang Dachuan immediately complied, using the mouse to drag the video progress bar back half an hour.
However, due to the mediocre quality of the dashcam's camera and the considerable distance, the recorded footage was quite blurry, making it impossible to clearly see the van's license plate.
Wang Dachuan instinctively looked toward Xu Mo.
The footage was too blurry to make out the license plate - this was a problem he couldn't solve, so he had to rely on Xu Mo.
"We can't make this out. Could you work your magic on this video too?"
"Cut out the segment where the van appears and send it to me. I'll see what I can do," Xu Mo said.
One minute later.
"Done!" Xu Mo finished processing the video.
The previously blurry footage was now somewhat clearer.
Wang Dachuan struggled to make out the details.
"Yang A.K376... what's the last digit? Is it a zero or the letter O? Or maybe an 8? What do you think it is?"
The first few characters were fairly easy to recognize, but the last digit was problematic.
They could only vaguely make out that it was somewhat circular.
Wang Dachuan couldn't determine if it was an O, 0, or 8.
After carefully examining the van's license plate in the video footage, Xu Mo responded.
"Private vehicles don't use the letter O in their license plates, except in the letter code section. The five digits after the dot can only contain numbers, not letters. The last digit doesn't really look like an 8 either, so this plate should be Yang A.K3760. Let me look this up."
With that, Xu Mo searched for the license plate number Yang A.K3760.
The search results showed that this plate number belonged to a Land Cruiser, not a van at all.
Wang Dachuan scratched his head: "So it's a cloned plate... These perpetrators are quite careful."
Since it was a vehicle with cloned plates, the registered owner's information was meaningless and couldn't be considered a lead.
This frustrated Xu Mo as well.
However, it wasn't completely impossible to track a vehicle with cloned plates.
While they couldn't trace the real owner's information, they could try to track where the vehicle went by checking surveillance cameras.
The surveillance coverage in this area wasn't very dense, with gaps between cameras and quite a few broken ones, plus there were many road intersections.
Therefore, trying to predict which camera would next capture the vehicle based on its direction of travel wasn't feasible.
They would need to check all surveillance cameras in the area to have any chance of tracking the vehicle's final destination.
It was too much work for one person to check so many cameras simultaneously.
So Xu Mo gathered other officers working on the case, shared all the leads he had found, and asked them to help search the surveillance footage for the cloned vehicle.
Suddenly, almost all officers were simultaneously searching for the whereabouts of the van with the cloned plate Yang A.K3760.
Many hands make light work, and after checking all surveillance cameras in the area, they managed to quickly trace the vehicle's final destination.
"After the kidnapping, the van headed straight for the suburbs. The surveillance cameras became increasingly sparse, and the last time this van was caught on camera was at the intersection of Dayu Road and Xifeng Road. We don't know where it went after that - it probably avoided routes with surveillance... This gang must have done their homework before acting," an officer reported.
After checking the map, Wang Dachuan suddenly had an idea: "The van was last seen at the intersection of Dayu Road and Xifeng Road, and wasn't captured on any cameras after that. This suggests the gang's hideout must be somewhere in that area. Should we try searching that area?"
As soon as he finished speaking, an officer objected.
"That's not necessarily true. That area is deserted, with many roads lacking surveillance. What if they turned onto some unnamed road... Besides, the area you're suggesting is too vast. We don't have enough manpower - how long would it take to search such a large area?"
"We can't just sit here doing nothing, waiting passively, can we? These traffickers might target another lone girl tonight. Even if we're short-staffed, we have to try. What if we actually find their hideout?" Wang Dachuan argued.
Indeed, they couldn't just wait around. Since surveillance cameras alone couldn't locate these traffickers, they needed a different approach... Xu Mo, who had been standing nearby, suddenly stood up and patted Wang Dachuan's shoulder.
"I'm heading out. If Captain Han asks, just tell him I'm out on duty."