Police catch 4 fugitives wanted online within 40 days

Police nabbed a 24-year-old fugitive wanted online in the Leshan Grand Buddha Scenic Area in Leshan, Sichuan province, on Friday.

This brought the total number of online fugitives caught within 40 days by the Leshan police to four, according to Zhang Chong, an information officer with the Leshan municipal government.

On Friday morning, a whistleblower told the police somebody who looked like an online fugitive was visiting the scenic area.

About three hours later, police stopped the man, who could not provide his identification card. The police then took him away from the scenic area for further questioning.

The man ran away from the police to hide in a deserted residence about 600 meters away. Police reached the residence and found him in a pile of firewood.

The man surnamed Chen is a local of Xi'an, Shaanxi province. Last July, he used handcuffs to tie two men to his car trunk in a village in Xi'an and drove his car, pulling the duo several hundred meters.

He cursed them, beat one of them with a pickax and illegally restricted their personal liberty for nearly three hours.

After he ran away from Xi'an, he was wanted online by the local police.

Since April 22, police in Leshan have nabbed four fugitives wanted online in the Leshan Grand Buddha Scenic Area.

The fugitives each committed one of several crimes -- spending a lot of money with a credit card but refusing to pay it back, hurting others, or borrowing money and a cellphone from somebody and disappearing, Zhang said.

Standing at 71 meters, the Leshan Grand Buddha is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.