China burglar in hyper-real silicone old-man mask steals valuables worth US$14,000 is caught within 24 hours
- Disguise evokes memories of Tom Cruise role in Mission Impossible films
- Police find clues in burgled flat, track thief down less than a day after raids
A burglar in China who tried to evade police by wearing a hyper-real silicone mask but was caught in less than 24 hours after committing the crime has caused much amusement online.
On March 6, police in Shanghai received a report of a burglary.
Four first-floor flats in a residential compound were broken into via their windows and cash and jewellery worth more than 100,000 yuan (US$14,000) in total was stolen.
Officers checked public surveillance cameras and discovered a suspicious “elderly man” wearing a face mask. The camera captured him entering the compound but not leaving it.
Investigators found clues left by the burglar in one of the flats, matched it with their database and found a man with a criminal record, according to the Shanghai media outlet, Xinmin Evening News.
To their shock, it was a man in his 40s who looked nothing like the elderly man in the surveillance footage.
In less than 24 hours, officers had located the man at a hotel 60km away from the police station. They retrieved all the stolen goods, theft tools, and a hyper-real silicone mask.
The burglar, surnamed Tong, said he tried to use the mask to trick the surveillance camera and did not expect to be arrested so soon.
The mask trick reminded some of the Hollywood action spy film franchise Mission: Impossible, in which Tom Cruise, who plays the main character Ethan Hunt, uses disguise to complete his dazzling assignments.
However, Tong’s mask was rather poorly made compared to that of Cruise.
He confessed to having bought it online. On China’s e-commerce platforms, such masks are priced as cheap as a few dozen yuan (a few US dollars).
The police did not specify what kind of trace they used to identify Tong. But on mainland social media, many speculated it was a SIM card that revealed his location.
China has required real-name registration for phone numbers and SIM cards since 2016.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, China used itinerary codes to control people’s movements in public spaces, which also worked by tracking a person’s location through mobile phone connections.
Many online observers were amused by the burglar’s story.
In November 2023, another robber was arrested after falling asleep and snoring loudly during a break-in in southwestern China’s Yunnan province.
In 2013, a thief in eastern China’s Zhejiang province was caught while breaking into a house because he laughed so loudly at a comedy film on TV that he was heard by the property’s owner.
