08/17/2012

China’s Most Wanted: How the Cops Got a Murderous Serial Bank Robber

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Police carry away the body of Zhou Kehua, the fugitive serial killer and armed robber, from the spot he was shot dead, in Chongqing Municipality, August 14, 2012.

Before Zhou Kehua became one of China‘s most wanted fugitives, he enjoyed reading and collecting detective novels. When he was short of cash as a teenager, he would sometimes sit on the roadside and rent his novels out, an acquaintance told the Chongqing Morning Post. But as an adult Zhou took a more direct and violent route to raising funds: robbing people at gunpoint, then shooting them and leaving them for dead. Police say he is suspected of killing 10 people in a crime spree that spanned eight years and three major Chinese cities. It came to a bloody end Tuesday when Zhou, 42, was gunned down by two plainclothes officers in Chongqing, his hometown in southwestern China.

 Zhou’s death brought an end to a four-day manhunt that saw thousands of police, military police and troops scouring hillsides in Chongqing’s rural districts. The search was triggered by a shooting outside of a Bank of China branch in the city’s Shapingba district that left a woman dead and two others injured. The assailant, who police identified as Zhou, made off with $11,000, according to state media reports. The authorities feared that he would disappear into the rural districts near where he grew up, but instead he was found early Tuesday on a street in one of Chongqing’s urban districts, possibly preparing for another heist.

Private firearm ownership is illegal in China and gun crimes are rare. The shooting of three civilians in Chongqing on Friday stirred public concern and revived memories of 2009, when a handful of shootings helped spur a massive crackdown on crime. That campaign helped raise the national stature of Chongqing’s then-leader, Bo Xilai, who has since had a spectacular fall from grace. His wife, Gu Kailai, went on trial last week for the poisoning of a British businessman, and Bo, who was removed from office in March, is under investigation by the Communist Party’s internal discipline system.

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Aug 17, 2012 12:56:58 AM | Crime, Current Affairs

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