"I want to report, there are other people around hiding tombs, and they are also robbing tombs..."
In a major tomb robbery case
When the suspect was raided
revealed a "major situation"
...
A major tomb robbery case led to another tomb robbery criminal gang. The prosecutor stripped his silk and collateral to handle the "out of the case", not only successfully recovered 8 stolen cultural relics, but also promoted the formation of a cross-provincial cultural relics protection and procuratorial cooperation mechanism to protect cultural relics. Recently, after the Xuyi County Procuratorate of Jiangsu Province filed a public prosecution, the court sentenced the defendants Li, Yang, Zhao and Wu to five years in prison for the crime of excavating ancient tombs, and each was fined.
arrested tomb robbers exposed
Other tomb robbers gangs
"I want to report that when we committed the crime in Xuyi , there were other people nearby robbing tombs..." In January 2021, when Hu Jijia, a prosecutor of Xuyi County Procuratorate, was interrogating Wang (handled in another case), Wang broke out a "major situation".
Some cultural relics were excavated from the stolen ancient tomb.
According to Wang's account, in October 2020, when he and his accomplices were robbing ancient tombs near a farmland in Xuyi, they accidentally discovered that another group of people he knew, including Li and Yang, were also doing the same "acting" nearby.
"At that time, they all knew each other and were doing this. They both tacitly understood each other and each other, but they must have got something." Wang explained. Li and others worked for several consecutive days. Wang secretly went to the tomb robbery site of Li and others to observe and found several robbery holes.
"In many cases, tomb robbers commit crimes, and tomb robbers also have a 'circle of friends', and even the tomb robbers in a 'area' know each other. Due to historical reasons, many cultural relics are buried underground in Xuyi and other places, and they are widely distributed. Therefore, the credibility of this report is very high." Hu Jijia, who has many years of experience in handling tomb robbery cases, reported to the court immediately and transferred the clues to the public security organs.
In December 2021, with the early intervention of the procuratorate, after investigation and verification, the public security organs finally locked in Li, Yang and Zhao who were suspected of digging ancient tombs. Li, Yang, Zhao and other three were sentenced by the local court for robbing ancient tombs in Yangzhou and other places. At this time, except for Zhao who was subject to probation, the other two were serving their sentences in prison.
Tomb robbery case two years ago
surfaced
"We met a local native in Xuyi. He was familiar with the local situation and knew where there might be 'thing'. So a few people went there to dig several times as soon as they planned." In January this year, Li, who was involved in the case, explained the crime in the local area.
In August 2019, Yang, who was also a tomb robber, met Wu from Xuyi. He learned from the other party that there were many ancient tombs nearby. After discussion, several people decided to pull a team to "dig treasures". So, starting from September 2019, under the leadership of Wu, Li, Yang, Zhao and three others took the pre-prepared steel chisel , metal detector and other equipment to farmland suspected of having ancient tombs to explore and mark them during the day, and at night they used steel chisels and digging holes to dig ancient tombs. For nearly a year, four people divided their work and cooperated, and carried out 7 tomb robberies in total. Five ancient tombs were excavated, and 8 Han Dynasty bronze mirror , 2 pottery gantry , and 2 pottery pots were dug. The stolen cultural relics were sold to Xu, who was engaged in antique business for more than 60,000 yuan (handled in another case).
In February this year, after learning that the stolen cultural relics had been transferred and sold stolen goods, Jiang Hanxuan, deputy director of the First Procuratorate of Xuyi County Procuratorate, who had intervened in the case in advance, rushed to the place where the stolen goods were sold and recovered the stolen cultural relics from the cultural relics dealer Xu in a timely manner: "We rushed over in time. The cultural relics dealer wanted to cover the things and sell them at a high price after washing them, but we did not expect that we would recover the stolen goods first."
The prosecutor in charge of the case immediately intervened in the rescue excavation site of the stolen ancient tomb.
Timely rescue excavation
Fixed chain of evidence
"This case is different from previous tomb robbery cases. Nearly two years have passed since the ancient tomb was stolen when the case was investigated and dealt with. Many evidence has disappeared due to time reasons, which has brought challenges to our work." In April this year, after the public security organs transferred the case to for review and prosecution of , Jiang Hanxuan decided to invite the cultural relics protection department to conduct rescue excavation at the crime scene, cooperate with the opinions on the identification of cultural relics involved in the case, restore the case situation, and fix the evidence chain.
The prosecutor checked some of the cultural relics excavated by the rescue.
After receiving the request from the procuratorate, the Huai'an Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute, with the help of the procuratorate, established an archaeological team to conduct rescue excavations of the stolen ancient tomb according to the locations explained by the persons involved in the case.
"Several ancient tombs have been damaged to varying degrees, and the traces left by the robbery can be clearly seen on the scene. Fortunately, the overall shape of several ancient tombs is still well preserved. Tomb robbers have not found the burial pits of individual tombs, so many burial objects have been unearthed." In June of the same year, after the Xuyi County Procuratorate filed a public prosecution against the four people involved in the case, Jiang Hanxuan went to the rescue excavation site of the stolen ancient tomb to fix the evidence link, and the staff responsible for the excavation on the site explained the situation to the prosecutor.
According to experts, during the rescue excavation that took one month, the archaeological team not only discovered traces of the robbery of the caves left by Li and others when robbing the tomb, but also excavated a large number of undiscovered cultural relics in an undiscovered tomb. experts speculate that the stolen ancient tombs was roughly in the middle and late stages of Western Han Dynasty. A large number of cultural relics such as iron sword , crossbow machine, Xizhen , etc. unearthed not only shows the glory of the tomb owner, but also provides a reference for studying the shape of Han Dynasty tombs. What is even more rare is that the archaeological team unearthed a set of Gilded Fu Town on site, which is not only exactly the same shape as the cultural relics unearthed from the tomb of Haihunhou, Jiangxi, which shocked China and the world, but are also preserved better, and have very good research value for the production skills at that time.
promotes the signing of cross-provincial cultural relics protection
Procuratorial Cooperation Mechanism
"Although after multiple rounds of crackdowns, as the prices of ancient Chinese artworks continue to rise in the international and domestic markets, tomb robbery crimes have continued to occur in recent years." Cao Lei, director of the First Procuratorate of Xuyi County Procuratorate, said.
According to reports, due to the profound historical and cultural heritage, the number of immovable cultural relics in in my country is huge and widely distributed. Some ancient tombs are hidden deep underground and scattered in wilderness and farmland. Some local management units have lagged behind in performing their duties and protection, which has created an opportunity for crimes such as robbing and excavating ancient tombs. Ancient tombs "being stolen first and then discovered" and "being stolen first and then protected" happens from time to time. Among them, Xuyi, Jiangsu, which was an important channel for cultural exchanges between the Central Plains and the Southeast region in history, and Tianchang, nearby Anhui, have become "treasure lands" frequently visited by tomb robbers.
In November this year, after the verdict of the case of robbing and excavating ancient tombs by Li and others, in response to the chainization, intelligence and obvious cross-regional trends of the crime of robbing and excavating ancient tombs, the Xuyi County Procuratorate and the Tianchang County Procuratorate of Anhui Province signed a cross-provincial cultural relics protection procuratorial cooperation mechanism - the cross- regional protection linkage cooperation mechanism of Huandongyang City Ancient Tomb Group. While improving cross-regional cooperation, it builds an efficient and accurate case cooperation platform.At the same time, after consultation, the procuratorates of the two places set up a special expert auxiliary case handling database. Based on the experience of handling cultural relics cases, archaeological experts were invited to participate in case handling, providing a basis for the later collection of evidence, consolidation of certificates, and the pursuit of compensation for the tomb public interest litigation in the tomb . (Procuratorial Daily Author: Ma Qiang Mao Xufeng Picture: Yang Yang)
