Chapter 301
It was only at three in the afternoon that the bank completed the scene investigation.
All 26 hostages had finished their statements, but there weren’t many valuable clues.
The bank had been robbed of 12.7 million dollars after accounting for it, and the remaining two million dollars or so were new consecutively numbered bills.
Seventy-six bank lockers were vandalized and their contents looted.
Bank lockers are not highly used in China, but they are extremely used in the U.S. Many Chinese people rent bank lockers for a long period of time, resulting in an oversupply of bank lockers near Chinese neighborhoods.
After Luke obtained the gold coins, he also thought of putting them into a bank locker for safekeeping, but now it seems that banks are not insured either.
Just as Luke guessed, not many valuable clues were found at the scene.
The tracking team dispatched by Anthony also came to no avail, the Los Angeles sewers were all over the place, and it was like a huge maze inside, with dirty and smelly sewage everywhere, making it extremely difficult to track.
Some people proposed to use police dogs to track it, and was scolded by Anthony, who only blamed him for being unlucky enough to run into a gun.
Don’t look at Anthony’s confidence in front of the reporters, in fact, the pressure was great.
This group of robbers behaved professionally and cunningly, and no one was sure whether they would continue to commit crimes.
Anthony and Luke discussed, the two split the investigation, Anthony is responsible for investigating the locker clues.
Luke was responsible for investigating the robbers’ whereabouts before the robbery.
The bank is not aware of the items placed in the lockers by the customers, but it has a set of its own management process.
Anthony guesses that the robber should have come to the bank to step on the spot, and the other party wants to enter the vault definitely need to rent a bank locker.
Anthony will focus his investigation on customers who have just recently rented a bank locker.
The second is the locker customers who have recently come to the vault.
The third direction of investigation is the bank employees, do not rule out the possibility of bank employees inside and outside.
Anthony, after some lineups, had seven people who had handled bank lockers in the last five days, and one of them, a man named Jerron Gaddafi, caught Anthony’s attention.
Name, Geraint Gaddafi
Gender, male
Date of birth, March 2, 1988
Cell phone number, 626 876 3423
Residential address, 302 Morrill neighborhood
Social Security number, 623-53-4322.
Prior offense, burglary.
Anthony’s instincts told him this was the man to see.
He checked Jeron Gaddafi’s locker and realized that his locker had also been vandalized and no items were found inside.
It was possible that he had taken the contents or that nothing had been put in it at all.
Nearly five hours had passed since the robbers fled the scene.
Anthony immediately led a team to the suspect’s home to make the arrest.
Morrill neighborhood.
Anthony tried to locate Jerron Gaddafi’s cell phone number on the way in, but the phone was out of range, which made him more and more certain.
Worried about spooking the suspect, he didn’t rush to the Moriel neighborhood to investigate with much fanfare, but instead broke up into smaller groups and spread out.
In Anthony’s experience, it was unlikely that the suspect was at home, but there were always some valuable clues to be found.
Under Anthony’s deployment, the FBI surrounded the suspect’s home.
Whether the suspect was at home or not, it was important to respond with caution.
At Anthony’s command, the FBI members split into two teams and rushed into the house from the front and back doors.
“FBI!”
“Living room clear.”
“Toilet clear.”
“Bedroom …… down!”
Before the words left his mouth, a popping sound came from the bedroom.
“Boom ……”
The ground shook and half of the house was blown down.
A scream came from the house.
It was difficult to move an inch without transportation in Los Angeles, Luke presumed that the robbers were most likely to come by car, and brought people to look for suspicious vehicles in front of the bank.
Through the surrounding vehicles, Luke quickly identified the suspect vehicle, a black Ford SUV.
After checking the license plate number found that the car belongs to the set of cars.
Subsequently, Luke for the car launched an investigation.
The investigation is mainly divided into two directions, the first direction is to check the surveillance, to see where the car is from, may be able to find the hijacker’s lair.
Luke contacted the vice squad and the task of checking the road surveillance was given to him and Matthew.
The other direction was to investigate the identity of the car’s owner, which Luke took charge of personally.
The license plate number was just a representation of the car; each car had unique markings, such as the engine serial number.
Luke had the car opened up and looked at it; the engine serial number had been smoothed out and other areas that could identify the car had been treated.
Luke guessed that there were two possibilities for the car, the first being that it was a stolen car.
The second, this was the car of the robber himself, and the other party had destroyed the car’s identifying information in order to avoid being traced through the car.
For the two different situations, there are also different ways to investigate.
If it is a stolen car, there is little point in looking for the owner, who can hardly provide valuable clues.
The best way to find out where the car came from is through automobile black markets and second-hand dealers.
This is Blackie’s forte.
If it wasn’t a stolen car, then it was probably the car of the robber himself, and for Luke to rule that out, he had to find out the identity of the owner as soon as possible.
Car owners would call the police after a car was stolen, and the police would record it, so it was possible to find the owner based on the car’s model, color, make and condition comparison.
Luke then began to arrange the tasks, Blackie and Jackson in a group, responsible for investigating the black car market.
Ramon and Jenny, on the other hand, were comparing the recorded stolen cars ……
“Ringing ……”
Luke pulled out his cell phone to see it was Reed’s number.
“Chief, I was just about to debrief you.”
“Luke, something’s going on over at the FBI.”
“What’s going on?”
“There was an explosion when Anthony was leading the team to search the suspect’s house, one of the FBI team members was killed on the spot, several other FBI team members were injured, and Anthony was sent to the hospital with injuries from the explosion.”
“How is Anthony’s condition? Is it serious?”
“It shouldn’t be life threatening, but I’m not sure if I can continue to investigate the case, if Anthony can’t take charge of the case, you have to be prepared to take over the case.”
“Will the FBI send someone else to take over the investigation?”
“It’s unlikely, several injured FBI agents were involved in the investigation of the case, and now that they are injured they are unable to continue investigating the case; if the FBI sends a new person to take over the case it will definitely cause a certain amount of repercussions, and the probability is that they will hand the case over to the LAPD.
And in the entire LAPD, only your squadron has been involved in the entire case and is the one who knows the case the best, it can only be you who will top it.”
“I know, which hospital is Anthony in, I want to go see him.”
St. Nectar’s Hospital.
Half an hour later, Luke arrived at the hospital to visit Anthony.
Luke pushed open the door of the hospital room and smelled a strong smell of medicine, Anthony was lying on the bed in a daze, his face and body were covered in color: “Hey man, I came to see you, is it hurt bad?”
“What are you talking about, speak up.” Anthony pointed to his ear, “The doctor said it will take a few days for my hearing to return.”
Luke shouted, “How’s your injury?”
“I’m okay, I’m just a little dizzy and my chest feels like I was hit by a rhino, the doctor told me to get a full checkup.
I don’t feel like I have too many problems, most of my body is just scrapes, it’s just scary to look at.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I got careless.” Anthony sighed softly, “I identified the suspect by lining up the tenant of the locker, then led the team to the suspect’s house, and while searching the house one of the agents triggered the bomb ……”
Anthony covered his face with his right hand, “I underestimated how dangerous the robbers were, one agent was killed instantly and three others were injured.”
Luke consoled, “You don’t have to blame yourself, things would have been just as unavoidable had I been leading the operation. No one would have expected the suspects to plant a bomb in their home.”
Anthony said, “Their previous actions were too disorienting.
They didn’t hurt a single hostage, claimed to kill them, and ended up just firing blanks, leaving an impression of ‘chivalrous robbers’.
Only for money, not to kill.
Bullshit, I’m going to kill these assholes myself.” Anthony’s eyes were red and the more he spoke, the more agitated he became.
“Anthony, don’t get too excited.
The most important thing for you right now is to get well. If your body can’t recover, you can’t go anywhere.” Luke was also a bit surprised when he first heard about this, before the robbers had been acting with restraint, not harming a single hostage during the robbery, and now they had blatantly blown up an FBI agent when it was clear that the robbery had been successful.
Before and after the action is very different.
Luke guessed that there were two possibilities, the first possibility, the hostages were no danger to the robbers, so the robbers did not kill the hostages.
But the FBI agents were different, they were tracking the whereabouts of the robbers, there was a huge threat to the robbers, and blowing up and injuring the FBI agents could interfere with the investigation of the case to a certain extent and escape the law.
The second possibility, there is probably a problem here.
Anthony sighed. I’m afraid …… that this case will still have to be taken over by your LAPD.
If my guess is good, the person specifically in charge of the case should be you, right?”
“If the LAPD decides to take over the case, I will do my best to investigate, and wait for you to be discharged from the hospital to arrest the robbers together.”
“Be careful, these robbers are going to be more vicious than expected.”
“I will, get some rest, I’ll see you again sometime.” Luke exited the hospital and drove to the Moriel community.
Just as he entered the neighborhood Luke saw a couple of eye-catching TV interview vans.
A cordon had been set up at the robber’s house, with police standing inside the line, reporters standing outside, and onlookers surrounding the residents.
Luke got out of his car, flashed his badge, and walked right inside the cordon.
The house of the hijacker, Geraint Gaddafi, had been half blown down, and there was a mess everywhere, with the tech team still surveying the scene.
“Mary, did you find anything?”
Mary Chen said, “We found fragments of a bomb at the scene, from my analysis it should be a trigger bomb. the FBI agent opened the bedroom door and triggered the bomb’s switch, which then exploded.”
“Can we start the investigation from the bomb side?”
“It’s difficult, from the traces of the fragments, this should belong to a homemade bomb, there are many channels to get these materials, it’s hard to trace it from the source.”
“Let me know when the survey report comes out.”
“Okay.”
Luke examined the explosion site, but didn’t find any valuable clues, and then prepared to leave.
Several reporters stopped him and asked in a chorus, “Captain Luke, can you accept our interview?”
“Is this explosion related to the bank robbers?”
“I heard that the explosion caused several FBI agents to be injured and one FBI agent to die, will the investigation of the case be in trouble?”
“Was Agent Anthony injured?”
Luke was silent for a moment and said, “I’m sorry, it’s not time for a press conference, please move over.”
Luke pushed his way through the crowd and didn’t give an interview to the reporters.
Because it was inappropriate to say anything about the current situation, before Anthony swore that everything was under control, but as a result, he was hit in the face so quickly.
At this time, if Luke’s tone was soft, it would make the reporter feel that he had no confidence, and would probably add fuel to the fire by reporting that the police were helpless in the face of the robbers.
If Luke was full of energy and confidence, he would inevitably be treated by the reporter as another Anthony.
In short, keeping his mouth shut at this time was the easiest way to handle the situation.
“Ringing ……”
Luke had just gotten into his car when his cell phone rang.
He took a look at it and it was Orty calling.
Luke didn’t throw it aside and didn’t answer it, his mind was a little messed up right now, the bombing of the FBI and Anthony’s injury had affected him in no small way.
Now, he was temporarily assigned to take over the bank robbery case, which was both a sign of trust from his leader and an invisible pressure.
If there was another bombing, then it would be him and his team that would bear the brunt of it.
“Ringing ……” the cell phone rang again.
Luke sighed and pressed the answer button, “Hello.”
“Captain Luke?” Orty’s voice came from the phone.
“It’s me.”
“By the sound of it, you seem to be in a bit of a bad mood.”
“That’s right, I’ve been temporarily assigned a very difficult case and I’m a little burnt out right now.
So you’d better make it short.”
“You sound a bit tired.
I suggest you take a dip in a spa and relax, it might help with the case.”
Luke hesitated slightly, “I may be late.”
“I happen to have time today.”
“See you in a bit.”
A little after eight o’clock in the evening.
Los Angeles Spa Hotel.
It was a Japanese style hotel.
A Japanese-style wooden house was covered in a single courtyard, and outside was a hot spring pool, which was small, a round pool with a diameter of four meters.
When Luke arrived, Orty was already sitting in the hot spring pool, showing only her exquisite face, plump upper body, the lower half of her body was soaked in the hot spring, and next to her was a pot of sake and a plate of fruits.
“Soaking in the hot spring can relieve your body’s fatigue, do you want to come down as well?”
“I’ll go change.” Luke took off his coat and entered the hot spring pool with a towel around him, sitting face to face with Orty.
The warm spring water wrapped around his body and Luke let out a long breath that did feel like his body muscles had relaxed a bit.
Orty asked, “Would you like a drink?”
Luke lifted his glass and Orty helped him to a glass of sake.
“Thanks.” Luke drank it all in one go and asked, “What is it that you wanted to see me about?”
“The firm just received a commission today that happens to be related to the bank robbery you’re investigating, so I need your help.”
Luke guessed, “The client is a bank?”
Orty shook his head, “It’s the insurance company.
The bank is insured with the insurance company.
The insurance company wants to find out why the bank was robbed, such as employee mishandling, management problems, inside-out collusion, and other irregularities, all of which will affect the amount of compensation.
North Hollywood Bank has not been in very good shape for the past two years and is at risk of failing at any time.
That’s why the insurance company hired the detective agency in time.”
Luke thought for a moment and, not committing a taboo question, replied, “At this point, there is no obvious fault found in the bank, nor is there any evidence of bank personnel working inside or outside the bank.
The bank staff triggered the alarm system shortly after the robbers entered the bank.”
Orty asked, “Are you sure you can catch the robbers? The insurance company will be able to claim less if they are able to recover some of the belongings.”
“I don’t know.” Luke had never been one to put words in his mouth.
“I heard the FBI guy got hurt?”
“Yes. I even went to see them in the hospital today, and one agent was killed instantly.”
“So will you be taking over the bank robbery?”
“Highly likely.”
“Will you contact me if you have information I need?”
“Of course.” Luke was happy to make a little extra money without jeopardizing the investigation of the case.
Last time, he had given Orty some information that didn’t matter to him, and the firm had paid him a ten thousand dollar ‘stipend’, which was a lot easier money than being a cop.
Luke scanned around, “How much is this hotel room?”
Orty playfully said, “$350, will you pay half the cost for me?”
“I’ll pay the full cost.”
“So generous.”
“I’m staying here tonight.”
Orty was puzzled, “Why don’t you go home?”
“I like the hot springs.” Luke moved down to let the hot spring water soak over his shoulders.
Orty and Luke chatted for a while, then left the hot tub and took off on her long legs.
Luke watched her leave and then continued to soak in the spring water.
He wasn’t going to go home and sleep tonight.
He had been on the police force for many years, but hadn’t had much exposure to explosives.
And bomb-related cases were more dangerous, like this time when an FBI agent was blown up in general.
If Luke had been in charge of investigating the lead on the bank locker, it would probably have been Robbery and Murder Division Squadron One that had been bombed.
The thought of having to face this bomb-making creep next stressed Luke out.
Although Luke had a bulletproof vest, he couldn’t be sure if he could completely avoid the power of the bomb.
In addition, even if he could avoid the bomb, what if his men were injured?
As the leader of the 1st Squadron, he had the responsibility and obligation to ensure the safety of his men.
In addition, Luke stayed at the hotel tonight, not just because he wanted to soak in the hot springs, he felt that sleeping at the hotel tonight might be more solid.
At the same time, from the conversation that Olty had just had, Luke was also inspired by something, if the North Hollywood Bank was really close to collapse, was it possible that they could have been supervising the theft?
If according to Ortie’s statement, North Hollywood Bank’s financial situation was not good, even facing the risk of bankruptcy, then why was there still more than fifteen million dollars stored in the vault, which was not a small amount.
Luke ventured a guess that if there wasn’t that much cash in the vault, then the money could never be recovered, and it would all end up being paid for by the insurance company.
And the banks would be the biggest beneficiaries.
Of course, this was only Luke’s theoretical guess, whether it was feasible or not remained to be investigated.