Chinese man hides in box to enter housing block, steals from woman before leaving in crate

A Chinese man attempted a “Trojan horse” trick to infiltrate a residential building and steal gold worth 200,000 yuan (US$28,000) but was caught within a week.

The 46-year-old man, surnamed Zhao, concealed himself in a wooden box and hired a delivery worker to transport the crate into the exit passageway of a building in central China’s Hunan province on October 9. This was meant to evade surveillance cameras.

Once inside, Zhao climbed out of the box and followed a woman returning home, claiming he was there to “recover a debt.” He then forced her to open her safe, stealing gold items totalling 230 grams valued at over 200,000 yuan based on current market prices and 2,000 yuan in cash.

To prevent her from alerting anyone, Zhao forced the woman to take sleeping pills. After she passed out, he spent about four hours cleaning the flat to eliminate any evidence before returning to the wooden box and calling another delivery service to take the box away.

The woman regained consciousness a few hours later and immediately contacted the police. A large-scale investigation ensued, involving over 50 officers reviewing surveillance footage and interviewing witnesses, but initially yielded little leads.

Eventually, investigators uncovered that the suspect had entered the building in the wooden box. They tracked Zhao, a local from Hunan who was living in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.

While the police did not disclose the specific method of tracing Zhao, online comments suggested that surveillance footage, logistics data, fingerprints, and phone signals may have been instrumental.