Theft a problem at highway service centers

Drivers and passengers are being urged to take special precautions at highway service centers in Guangdong province, where police say robberies and thefts are an ongoing problem.

A growing number of thefts have been reported in recent months at the centers for food and refueling in the southern province that borders Hong Kong and Macao, said Ruan Fucheng, deputy director of the key criminal case section under Guangdong's provincial Department of Public Security.

"The robberies at highway service centers in Guangdong usually involve large amounts of money and property and have posed big threats to residents," Ruan said on Thursday.

A driver surnamed Xue was robbed of more than 10 million yuan ($1.61 million) in gold and jewelry from a box in his car's trunk at the Baiyunzai service center on the Shenhai Expressway in eastern Guangdong on Jan 8, Ruan said.

After several months of investigation, police detained four suspects in Zhongshan and Zhanjiang and recovered about 1 million yuan worth of stolen property in May.

The suspects, all Zhanjiang residents, admitted to stealing Xue's gold and jewelry, but they had sold most of the items by the time they were detained, Ruan said.

It was the biggest theft reported at a highway service center in Guangdong province, Ruan said.

On July 9, a police officer investigating a robbery at a highway service center in Dongguan was knocked down and seriously injured by a vehicle driven by a member of a criminal gang, police said. Police said they detained two suspects on July 17 and they admitted driving into the officer.

Ruan urged drivers and passengers to mind their vehicles and property when they want to rest in the highway service centers and to be aware that it "usually takes one to two minutes for the thieves to open a car trunk".

"Police find it very difficult to solve such cases because the robbers usually go from one place to another to steal," Ruan said. "They usually rob in Guangzhou in the morning and then offend in Shenzhen or other Pearl River Delta cities in the afternoon."

To fight theft at Guangdong's highway service centers, Ruan urged major cities in the region to share information and analyses, and increase their patrols along major highways.

Additionally, more special campaigns will focus on fighting crime in upcoming months, he said.

Zhang Rui, political commissar of the criminal investigation bureau under the Guangdong provincial department of public security, said robberies and burglaries are big public security problems in Guangdong.

The province still has one of the highest crime rates in the country, despite greater efforts to crack down on crime.

"Guangdong was reported to have more than 220,000 robberies in the first half of the year, 28 percent less than in the same period of 2014," Zhang said at a news conference on Thursday in Guangzhou, the provincial capital.

Police detained more than 21,000 suspects after investigating 47,000 robberies and burglaries between January and June, Zhang said.

"Police smashed a total of 375 robbery gangs in the first half of the year," he said.

Huang Min contributed to this story.

zhengcaixiong@chinadaily.com.cn