Chapter 842

"Director Song, we've confirmed that this 'Iron Lump' is indeed Tie Wanshan of the Poison-Ingesting Network, the deputy to 'Huang Shuijing'."

A subordinate brought a thick stack of documents to report to Song Beishou; most of what was tucked inside were photos, with a minority being various text tables.

Song Beishou looked through them one by one, confirmed they were correct, and then nodded: "Good. In that case, we can consider the levels below the three 'Crystals' to be thoroughly cleared."

"Yes! This counts as the fifth big fish," the subordinate said repeatedly.

Even for the General Brigade, it is not certain they can catch a few big fish of this level every year.

If you count it up, this is already a second-tier figure in a nationwide drug trafficking network, analogous to a... Sales Director of a drug trafficking group, and a senior one at that, the kind who frequently adds titles like VP.

Song Beishou's smile flashed and vanished; he had already caught four similar big fish, so the impact of the fifth was clearly not quite enough.

Song Beishou handed the documents back to the subordinate and said: "Hang it up."

Having received Song Beishou's permission, the subordinate wrote Tie Wanshan's name on a yellow piece of paper, stuck it in the middle of the whiteboard behind them, and noted next to it: Person in charge of the drug production factory.

On the whiteboard, it was densely packed with stickers made of names.

Through the arrest of a large number of personnel from the Poison-Ingesting Network, Song Beishou and the others have become very familiar with its system; the personnel relationship chart created based on this is more detailed than what the internal members themselves know.

As of now, the three bosses of the Poison-Ingesting Network each control a line. "Purple Crystal" controls the sales line, "Huang Shuijing" controls the production line, and "Blue Crystal" is responsible for financial activities such as money laundering.

The three lines do not intersect with each other, basically forming three tree diagrams, with Purple Crystal's being the largest, Huang Shuijing's the second, and Blue Crystal's the smallest.

On the entire image, there are over three hundred named personnel, most of whom are members of the Poison-Ingesting Network, with a small portion being their peripheral members.

And among these people, they are divided into three colors: red, yellow, and green. Red is for fugitives, yellow is for arrested personnel, and green is for members whose identities have not yet been confirmed or are in doubt.

With the work of the past week or so, the green on the three tree diagrams is becoming fewer and fewer, and yellow is gradually becoming the main color tone.

The only problem remains the three core masterminds, who are still on green-backed paper.

This incredibly intuitive relationship chart made of stickers had originally received praise from multiple leaders. For Song Beishou and the others, it was also an incredibly intuitive massage for their professional ambition.

On this basis, everyone hoped to depict this relationship chart completely, and one day, to have the upper-level figures all lined up and executed—that would be how wonderful and satisfying!

Song Beishou looked back; Jiang Yuan and the others were still busy comparing fingerprints and footprints.

Now, because more footprints have been obtained and their difficulty is greater than fingerprints, Jiang Yuan spends more than half of his time processing footprints.

The results are also exceptionally significant; just look at the red and yellow list on this chart, and you will know that most of them were matched by Jiang Yuan.

"It should belong to the speculation of several middle-level drug traffickers. Two drug traffickers once helped the upper level handle corpses, and they were the corpses of their own team members. They speculated that it should be the top level who wanted to do it." Song Beishou said and talked about the specific situation.

Song Beishou does not know if he should intervene.

In the past, when reaching this stage, he would at least hold a small-scale case analysis meeting before deciding on the next direction for the investigation.

But the situation this time is different.

The entire case is essentially being pulled along by Jiang Yuan, this locomotive. So, if the investigation direction is changed, should it continue to rely on Jiang Yuan, this locomotive, to provide the power?

Of course!

Jiang Yuan is still maintaining a speed of discovering double-digit suspects every day; whether they can be caught is someone else's problem, but Jiang Yuan's technical level is beyond doubt.

Song Beishou is anxious, not stupid; he will not change course at a time like this.

However, if they continue to use Jiang Yuan as the locomotive to provide power, there is actually not much room to shift the investigation direction of this case. Because Jiang Yuan is a technical expert, his technical type determines his direction.

Song Beishou stands in Jiang Yuan's perspective to think, and he can understand this problem better. Jiang Yuan is already using his most proficient techniques, such as fingerprints and footprints, to help push the case forward, and the case is indeed advancing step by step, with suspects constantly being discovered, identified, and arrested...

It can be said that if it were any other police officer, they could not have done better.

But from another perspective, the power of the organization has not been fully and completely utilized...

"Director Song, that Division Chief Liu Jinghui is here," the internal affairs officer came over to report.

Song Beishou's train of thought was suddenly pulled away. After thinking for a moment, he simply said: "Invite Division Chief Liu to the conference room, then notify the several detachment captains, as well as Old Yi and the others, to come over for a meeting."

"Yes." The internal affairs officer has been with Song Beishou for a long time; he knows who to call without needing him to list the names one by one.

A while later, several detachment captains and multiple police officers gathered.

These people belong to the core decision-making team of the Anti-Narcotics General Brigade. Among them, besides the heads of the main detachments, there are also team members whom Song Beishou considers to be relatively intelligent or technically proficient. For daily ordinary cases, Song Beishou likes small-scale discussions, and many times he doesn't even call the heads of the detachments.

Liu Jinghui is a celebrity in the Provincial Department. In the last two years, his fame has grown larger and larger; he is the kind of expert that various units don't particularly like, but always think of when they encounter problems.

This time, it was also because of Jiang Yuan's recommendation that Song Beishou invited him over through formal channels from the Provincial Department.

"Let me introduce Division Chief Liu first." Song Beishou had not met Liu Jinghui for the first time; they had had shallow cooperation before. At this moment, he pulled Liu Jinghui over and they introduced each other.

Liu Jinghui nodded with a graceful demeanor, looking more like an academic professor than a police officer from a disciplined force.

The middle-aged Liu Jinghui is clean and upright, with a clear jawline; he belongs to the type of man whose "flowering period" is particularly long, much like a chrysanthemum—it doesn't look very good at first, but if you put it together with various flowers for two or three weeks, it looks exceptionally beautiful.

By comparison, the other middle-aged men in the small conference room appear somewhat greasy.

"With Division Chief Liu here, let's discuss the current problem. The current investigation progress is actually very satisfactory; the backbone members of the Poison-Ingesting Network have been arrested one after another, and related personnel have also been arrested in large numbers. But for the three most important ringleaders of this case, the internal personnel of the Poison-Ingesting Network don't know their identities either. We have to find a way to ferret these three people out," Song Beishou patted the documents in his hand, not knowing how many times he had muttered about this problem.

*Pop, pop... *

In the small conference room, upon hearing the problem, some people naturally lit up cigarettes.

Yuxi, Liqun, Huanghelou... the firelight flickered, reflecting off each other.

Liu Jinghui followed the trend and took out a pack of Zhonghua cigarettes that Jiang Yuan had given him, and also "popped" it lit.

"I think the first thing is to strengthen the interrogations. There are many people caught now, and many have not been interrogated thoroughly. We don't have enough manpower either; half of the people have been sent out on business trips to other places, and they are exhausted when they come back," the captain of the First Detachment said, holding a Yuxi in his mouth, speaking first.

"It's a method, but it might not necessarily catch these three ringleaders," Song Beishou evaluated.

"Can we strengthen contact with the detention center and induce a few guys to actively perform meritorious service?" The one smoking Black Lanzhou was also a detachment captain; he smoked a third of the cigarette in one go.

Song Beishou gave an "en" sound and said: "Breaking a fortress from within—this is a strategy we have been working on... I'll leave this job to you; go to the detention center and pick a few people to try it out."

"Yes." Those who propose ideas are the ones who have to do the work; several people were used to this. Anyway, there is always work to be done.

"Can we find people by following the money? These three 'Crystals' have cut off all other relationships; the old brothers who started the business with them were almost all killed by them, but the money has to go into their own pockets, right? Otherwise, what's the point of doing this?"

Song Beishou's eyes brightened slightly: "This line of thinking is feasible, but how to implement it specifically?"

Following the money is a template commonly used by the Anti-Narcotics General Brigade. However, with the rise of the telecommunications fraud sector, drug-related industries have also been passively upgraded. Money that might have been difficult to launder cleanly in the past can now be easily laundered after entering the telecommunications fraud circle, and the expenses are even lower.

And cost was originally the biggest dam hindering money laundering.

The detachment captain who proposed the idea silently lit a Liqun: "Implement it... our team was already doing it, um..."

The smoke in the conference room became noticeably thicker.

"Actually, when it comes to the ability to solve cases, Jiang Yuan is truly the strongest. For this kind of catching ten or twenty people a day, our detachment could do it if we were released, but we can't catch people every day. But he has been with us for half a month, and I feel like I can't even handle the paperwork anymore," the captain of the First Detachment lit another Yuxi, not because he wanted to smoke, but because the Liqun next to him was too pungent.

Liqun smiled slightly: "I followed him out to catch people; before the person was even brought back, the phone call came in again, catching this one and that one. Just finished catching one, and the phone call came again..."

"It's a pity there is no such 'handle' (leverage); otherwise, Jiang Yuan should have directly taken out the three 'Crystals'."

"Now they are all called 'handles'."

"Then you go grab one."

Song Beishou waved his hand: "Don't talk about these things; now let's see how to take out the three 'Crystals'."

"They killed all the subordinates who knew them; this is clearly to hide their identities. Without special means, I'm afraid it's very difficult to ferret them out," Yuxi shook his head and said: "I think, either we just take destroying this drug network as the main goal."

What he meant was actually to ignore the three ringleaders at the top. And to a certain extent, such ringleaders who have isolated themselves from the lower levels are basically useless once they lose their organizational ability, and the difficulty of doing evil again is very high.

"And then?" Song Beishou was noncommittal. It is easy to give up, but the purpose of the meeting is not to give up.

Song Beishou's gaze drifted toward Liu Jinghui.

Before Liu Jinghui came, he had read a large amount of data and had some ideas. Hearing the analysis of several people at this moment, he said:

"Actually, I have always had an idea: how do these three 'Crystals' specifically command their subordinates? They can't just rely on sending emails and text messages, right? What if the subordinates don't listen? Just kill them directly? They aren't that cruel, are they?"

Liu Jinghui stubbed out his cigarette butt and said: "Let me put it another way: our domestic drug dealers don't have as easy a time replenishing personnel as those abroad, and they can't consume them so casually. From my observation, this Poison-Ingesting Network is relatively flexible in management compared to other drug gangs; it's not the kind that kills at every turn."

Song Beishou nodded: "They can manage such a large scale while remaining relatively secretive; they still have some substance."

"Right, their management has some substance," Liu Jinghui agreed: "But let's say, in an ordinary company, if the boss never comes to the company, doesn't hold meetings, doesn't see employees, and only relies on the remote reporting of a few mid-level members, can they make the company run this well?"

Several detachment captains who were smoking looked over. They themselves are managers in the police force, so they naturally know how complicated managing people is. Let alone the person not being there; even if they come to the police force every day, they might not be able to manage the team well.

Liqun couldn't help but say: "It's true. Our police force is so troublesome to manage; drug dealers can't possibly be that obedient."

Song Beishou also nodded: "The new recruits coming to the General Brigade now are all undergraduates and postgraduates, so it's a bit easier to manage than before. As for drug dealers... even if they are afraid of death, after they take drugs, they aren't that obedient either."

"So, how do these three 'Crystals' manage the company? Is it really like the facade they've created, relying entirely on remote control?" Liu Jinghui threw out an open-ended question.