Taizhou's most wanted fugitive and briefly the country's most famous pick-pocket, the man who was filmed stealing an old man's "life-saving money" on a city bus last week was apprehended by police over the weekend.
On December 15, the suspect, Wan Xianbin, was captured on a fellow passenger's mobile phone camera taking RMB3,860 from the pocket of an old man seated beside him. After Wan, 41, alighted from the vehicle, the young female passenger responsible for the minute-and-a-half-long video then informed the 78-year-old victim that he'd been stolen from, and the two went to report the crime to the police.
The case received nationwide attention in subsequent days as the story was endlessly shared across social media platforms. The suspect was dubbed the "Gentleman thief" owing to his seemingly neat and respectable demeanor.
The victim, Mr. Chen, was en route to the hospital to pay for medicine to treat his lung cancer when he fell prey to Wan, making the crime particularly unforgivable in the eyes of the public. Within days, police received over 1,000 offers of information leading to his arrest.
Spooked by the flurry of media attention and the pressure it placed on police to bring him to justice, Wan, a native of Zigong, Sichuan Province, was fled from Taizhou to Yiwu, where he was caught by police on Saturday morning.
A professional public transportation pick-pocket, Wan had been sentenced to 12 days' detention for the same misdemeanor in Taizhou in 2010 and the next year was imprisoned for eight months in Yiwu.
Mr. Chen now has his much-needed money back in his hands.
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