Policeman dons woman's identity to nab 66 fugitives

Beijing police, identified by alias Xiao Yun.[Photo/Sina Weibo]

What's the best way to lure a criminal? From an operation carried out by an ingenious policeman it seems the possibility of a woman's love is the best bait.

A cop in North China's Hebei province caught 66 criminals all by himself in 2014 by posing as a woman looking for love online.

Using the alias Xiao Yun, he began reaching out to fugitives actively. Starting in October 2013, he began locating fugitives online, and started chatting with them, pretending to be a woman searching for true love. After they would "hit it off", he would ask them to meet him in person, and then catch them.

How successful his method proved to be, compared to the traditional methods, can be gauged by the fact that the whole police bureau at a train station in North China's Hebei province was able to apprehend only six fugitives in the whole of 2012.

He said he came up with the idea because a large number of fugitives don't work or move around in public often, usually preferring the online world to kill time.

According to him, "making them comfortable and relaxed" is the key to winning their trust, and trust is the first step to make them agree to an offline meeting. To achieve this, he goes through every detail carefully.

In terms of schedule, he contacts the criminals at times that are convenient to the fugitives. "If they work in a shoe factory, or at an electronic factory, I talk to them after work, as the management there is strict, or on weekends. I don't rush them."

He also takes on different personalities to give them a sense of familiarity. For instance, if the criminal said he was a divorced man, the cop too would say that "she" was also a divorcee. Or, if the criminal was rich, he would talk like a gentle and submissive girl, because he assumed the latter always like such types.

"The key is to analyze what he thinks, and likes, and talk like that," he said.