The gang of "Mojin School Lieutenant" dived 30 meters into the sea late at night and stolen, 846 cultural relics were recovered
Wang Xuanhui, senior reporter of The Paper
At 11 o'clock in the evening, Wei Mouchao swam from the bottom of the sea to the surface at a depth of more than 20 meters and brought back two boxes of sea-fished porcelain.
Breathing the sea air, he was delighted in his heart: Another night full of rewards.
He didn't know that his whereabouts had already been spotted by the public security organs.
After returning to the hotel, he and the other five suspects were collectively captured by the long-staying police, and a series of stolen items such as speedboats and diving suits were seized.
The above scene is one of the “11·23” series of theft and fishing cases under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Security. With further investigation and collection, the public security organs of Zhangzhou City and Zhangpu County in Fujian arrested suspects including Wei Mouchao. 19 persons and 846 pieces of sea-fished porcelain were seized.
Appraised by the cultural relics department, 846 cultural relics are all Yuan Dynasty Longquan Kiln cultural relics, of which 76 are cultural relics above Grade III.
In May 2021, The Paper reported in an interview in Zhangpu that these gangs of stolen shipwreck cultural relics were composed of investors and divers. The two parties agreed on the proportion of investment and the profit distribution after the stolen goods were sold. Several pirates were carried out in the Zhangpu waters. Fishing, and then resell the cultural relics to Jiangxi and other places.
Local cultural protection experts told The Paper that as early as the Song and Yuan dynasties, Fujian sea routes extended in all directions. For various reasons, some ships sank in the coastal waters of Fujian and became underwater cultural relics.
In an interview with The Paper, Guo Zhiliang, deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Fujian Provincial Public Security Department, bluntly stated that these underwater cultural relics are not only an important witness to the prosperous maritime trade in Fujian, but also a target for illegal stealing.
In the future, the public security organs will continue to intensify their crackdowns and always maintain a high-pressure situation of cracking down on cultural relics.
Part of the sea-fished porcelain involved in the case was collected and exhibited in the Zhangpu County Museum.
Part of the sea-fished porcelain involved in the case was collected and exhibited in the Zhangpu County Museum.
"Water Ghost" eyeing the cultural relics of the sea
According to local cultural protection experts in Fujian, the coastal area of Fujian is one of the starting points of the "Maritime Silk Road" and an important channel for foreign trade in ancient China. However, due to the weather, sea conditions, and the ship’s own conditions at that time, reefs and sinking occurred from time to time. .
Because most of the ships are kept intact after sinking underwater, there is a saying in the cultural market that "a ship has ten tombs".
These shipwrecks are precious cultural heritage left by human historical activities and possess high economic and historical value.
However, some lawbreakers are eyeing these treasures of underwater cultural relics, including Wei Mouchao.
Wei Mouchao is a native of Liuzhou, Guangxi. He is 34 years old this year. He is a diver engaged in underwater fishing. He has been learning diving with his fellow villagers since he was 20 and has been in the diving industry for more than ten years.
Before the incident, he had been working in some marine farms in Zhanjiang, Guangdong and other places, and was responsible for the salvage of conch and other seafood.
In this line, divers who are skilled in diving are called "water ghosts".
Wei Mouchao has rich experience in diving and often fishes in the deep sea of more than 20 meters.
"At that time, I was short of money, so I was thinking about how to get money faster through some methods." In an interview with The Paper, Wei Mouchao said that in the WeChat group of divers, colleagues will often discuss the salvage of underwater cultural relics, 2020 In September, when he was short of money at home, he had a crooked mind.
Under the recommendation of a friend, Li Xing, a fisherman from Pingtan, Fujian, who also focused on the cultural relics of the sea, established contact with Wei.
According to local cultural protection experts, in the vast ocean, archaeologists want to find these cultural relic sites, which is tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack. On the contrary, fishermen who have been working at sea for a long time may find the cultural relics first. Once the news comes out, there will be pirates. The news comes.
Through feedback from local fishermen, Li Mouxing and others determined the location of the stolen fish-the sea area near Liu'ao Town, Zhangpu County, Zhangzhou City.
According to local fishermen, there are often some porcelains floating out of the sea in this area, which were later identified as cultural relics of the Song and Yuan dynasties.
After being caught, some fishermen argued that the stealing of cultural relics is just a general illegal act of illegal fishing and does not constitute a crime.
In fact, the "Cultural Relics Protection Law" has long stipulated that all cultural relics remaining in the underground, internal waters and territorial waters of the People's Republic of China belong to the state.
Whoever steals national cultural relics will be investigated for criminal responsibility in accordance with the law.
According to the relevant person in charge of the Criminal Investigation Brigade of the Zhangpu County Public Security Bureau, the police often publicize the law to fishermen at the seaside. If fishermen find cultural relics from the sea in their daily operations, they should promptly submit them to the government cultural relics department, and they should not dispose of or sell them privately.
Wei Mouchao hired divers Luo Mou and Wu Mouhua, and Li Mouxing hired Pingtan fellows Li Mouming and Li Mouchun to be responsible for funding, and a stealing gang was formed.
Afterwards, they purchased diving equipment, oxygenation equipment and chartered boats and made all preparations.
Stole late at night, the police set up a world network
The 6-member gang composed of Wei Mouchao and others is divided into two parts. Three are divers who are responsible for launching and salvaging; and three are funders who are responsible for diving, chartering, transportation and accommodation.
The two parties negotiated that 50% of the salvaged cultural relics will be allocated to each.
Wei Mouchao said that a few days before the crime, they would collectively stay in a hotel near the salvage site to observe the local weather conditions.
In the event of rain, or weather with heavy wind and waves and low temperature, they will wait for the opportunity again.
Their first crime was at the end of September 2020.
The temperature was not low that day, and the wind and waves were relatively small. At seven or eight o'clock at night, Wei Mouchao and his party rented a boat to go to sea.
Actually two divers went into the water that day.
"We did not bring oxygen cylinders, but connected to the water through an oxygen pipe. The boss (investor) controlled the oxygen supply on the ship and stabilized the oxygen pipe." Wei Mouchao said.
"This may be the deepest place I have ever dived into in my diving career." Wei Mouchao said that in the past, when fishing conch in fisheries, the general diving depth was about ten meters, but this time the diving depth was nearly 30 meters.
"This kind of diving and stealing is actually extremely dangerous." Ruan Yonghao, deputy director of the Zhangzhou Cultural Relics Protection Center, said in an interview with The Paper. Because the diving equipment equipped by the stealers is relatively simple, many people are working underwater at the same time. It is easy to cause the oxygen pipes to be entangled together, which affects the delivery of oxygen.
Failure to guarantee oxygen supply may directly cause suffocation of divers.
Ruan Yonghao said that the pressure in the deep sea is very high, and divers repeat diving in the deep sea of about 30 meters, and diving for a long time can easily lead to safety accidents.
Some divers are prone to acute decompression sickness even after completing their work, which can cause serious damage to bones and joints.
Wei Mouchao said that after he dived into the water, he did not directly see the hull. The porcelain he wanted to salvage was covered by heavy soil. Some were stacked uniformly, and some were scattered.
He and another diver fumbled underwater for more than an hour, filled the net bag he carried with him and floated to the surface, and fished more than 300 porcelain bowls.
Afterwards, all the sea fishing porcelains were taken away by the investor Li Mouxing and others. They gave Wei Mouchao and the other 3 people 60,000 yuan in cash, saying that it was an advance payment for the porcelain, and the profit was shared after all the porcelain was sold.
"I didn't expect this money to come so quickly." Wei Mouchao said. He usually earns from six to seven thousand yuan to ten thousand yuan a month from work, and he can only fish for a few hundred yuan a day for conch, but this time, he was allocated 2 yuan per night. Ten thousand yuan, I lost myself in one fell swoop.
Soon, Wei Mouchao began to organize the second steal.
This time, he went from being a diver to an organizer.
He gathered several fellow villagers and colleagues, and planned to start stealing in mid-to-late November.
What he didn't expect was that the public security organs had grasped their whereabouts.
According to the relevant person in charge of the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Fujian Provincial Public Security Department, at the end of September 2020, important clues were obtained in the work: a batch of porcelain bowls were suspected to be salvaged from the seabed. The pictures of the porcelain bowls were identified by the cultural relics department and initially judged to be Song and Yuan porcelain. The appearance is good, with the characteristics of sea-fished porcelain.
This clue attracted the attention of the three-level public security organs of Fujian Province, Zhangzhou City, and Zhangpu County. On October 10, the Zhangzhou and Zhangpu-level public security organs immediately established a task force to deploy police from multiple departments to carry out investigations such as research, judgment, and investigation.
The police handling the case told The Paper that on November 18, 2020, Wei Mouchao and two men checked into the Huadu Hotel in Liuao Town, Zhangpu County.
The task force analyzed and judged that Wei Mouchao and others have started to implement the stolen cultural relics.
At about 18:00 in the evening of November 22, the investigators discovered that Wei Mouchao and others were driving the vehicle to load the ship at the Hutoushan Wharf in Liu'ao Town, preparing to go to sea.
The task force quickly divided the troops into multiple routes and deployed the net extensively.
Wei Mouchao and others, who were obsessed with Cai, didn't notice the abnormality.
Two pirate fishing gangs were destroyed and 846 cultural relics were seized
At about 1 am on November 23, the task force captured Wei Mouchao, Li Mouyuan, Oumju, Huang Mouhang, Luo Mourong, Wei Moumin and other 6 suspects in Huadu Hotel, Liu'ao Town. At the scene, the transport vehicle, 2 boxes of porcelain cultural relics in the vehicle, diving suits and other crime equipment were seized at the scene.
At the same time, the task force captured Zheng in the home of Zheng in Liuao Town.
After interrogation, Wei Mouchao and others confessed to the crime of stealing cultural relics from the seabed sunken ship.
In an interview with The Paper, Wei Mouchao said that he thought that fishing for cultural relics in the sea was just a general illegal fishing act, and it was only a fine warning. He did not expect that the nature was so serious and he regretted it, but he knew it was too late.
According to the analysis of the task force, judging from the number of the gang, the division of labor, and the tools used, this is a relatively professional and experienced criminal gang.
After digging deep in the task force’s interrogation, Wei explained that at the end of September 2020, he cooperated with Li Moming, Li Mochun, Li Moxing from Pingtan, Fujian, and Wu Mohua and Luo from Guangxi, to steal cultural relics in the same sea area. More than 300 porcelain bowls.
In order to quickly arrest other criminal suspects and recover other stolen cultural relics, on November 26, the task force immediately rushed to Fuqing and Pingtan to arrest the remaining criminal suspects, with the support of the public security authorities in Fuqing and Pingtan, Fujian. Next, the suspects Li Mouxing and Li Mouyun were successfully arrested.
According to the confession of the suspected population, the task force continued to travel back and forth between Zhangpu and Pingtan, Fuqing, Changle and other places in Fujian Province, and successively recovered 169 pieces of porcelain artifacts involved in the case.
During the investigation, the task force discovered that a group of people had committed the crime of stealing cultural relics from the seabed in the Gulei area of Zhangpu County. The Zhangzhou City Public Security Bureau decided to carry out a combined investigation and arrested 8 suspects.
After interrogation, it was discovered that the gang had resold some of the cultural relics to Jiangxi Province, and immediately organized an arrest team to Fuzhou City, Jiangxi Province to capture the suspect Chen Moubin and two others (all of Jiangxi nationality), and seized 476 pieces of sea-fished porcelain.
It has been ascertained that the gang to steal the sunken cultural relics is composed of funders and divers. It has agreed on the proportion of investment and the profit distribution after the stolen goods are sold. The criminal facts of organizing criminals to steal and obtain major illegal benefits in Zhangzhou waters.
The Paper has learned that the case was judged by the Zhangpu County People’s Court on May 6 this year. The five criminal suspects were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one year and six months to two years and ten months. 14 suspects were transferred to the Zhangpu County Procuratorate for review and prosecution.
"I regret it now. I hope that my colleagues will stop thinking about the cultural relics of the sea and avoid making the same mistakes as me." Wei Mouchao said.
In an interview with The Paper, Guo Zhiliang, deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Fujian Provincial Public Security Department, introduced that the case was a large-scale stolen and recovered cultural relics from the seabed in Fujian Province in recent years. 846 cultural relics were seized and recovered on the spot, avoiding the loss of cultural relics.
Appraised by the cultural relics department, 846 cultural relics are all from the Longquan Kiln of the Yuan Dynasty, and 76 are cultural relics above Grade III. The cultural relics have relatively high economic value and high historical value.
Guo Zhiliang believes that the detection of this case has achieved a good effect of striking a group of people, deterring one side, and stabilizing one side. It has played a key role in the protection of cultural relics in Zhangpu County and even Fujian Province, especially undersea cultural relics.
In the future, we will continue to intensify the crackdown, and always maintain a high-pressure situation of cracking down on cultural relics crimes.