195: Chapter 195 Thirty Million in Cash

The lingering tenderness slowly dissipated, leaving only the sound of steady, intertwined breathing in the bedroom.

Lu Manqi lay softly on Jiang Chen's chest, her eyes drooping lazily. She felt as if she had been softened by warm water, lacking even the strength to lift a hand, quietly nestling against him without wanting to move an inch.

Jiang Chen lightly wrapped his arm around her waist, leaning against the headboard with his eyes closed to rest, letting his thoughts slowly settle.

After a good while, he gently moved his arm, afraid of disturbing the woman in his arms who seemed fast asleep, and reached for the phone on the nightstand.

He lit up the screen and went straight to the backend of his exclusive daily wealth intelligence.

The interface refreshed, and a new piece of intelligence popped up with a concise and straightforward title.

[Today's Wealth Intelligence: Intercept hidden illicit gains from an overseas cross-border arbitrage syndicate; risk-free acquisition of 30 million in cash].

Jiang Chen's eyes narrowed slightly as he tapped to open the details.

The intelligence content was clear and specific, listing the time, location, syndicate background, source of funds, and operational methods one by one, with every key node precise to a reassuring degree.

[Intelligence Target: Independent Warehouse No. 3 of the Former State-owned Jiangcheng Grain and Oil Reserve Warehouse, West Suburb Outer Ring, Jiangcheng City.

The warehouse is located at the innermost part of the entire park, with no permanent residents within a three-kilometer radius. Only a gravel path connects it to the main road, and there are no public surveillance cameras or security patrols.

Stored within the warehouse is a large amount of cash temporarily hidden by a Southeast Asian cross-border gray arbitrage syndicate, totaling exactly 30 million yuan. It is all packed into eight thick, black, sealed canvas bags, each weighing approximately 35 kilograms.

These funds consist entirely of overseas hot money that entered the country through underground channels in small batches. They are illegal stagnant cash that has not yet completed the money laundering process, with no formal investment background, no legal tax records, and an untraceable source.

Syndicate Background: Headquartered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with six core members holding passports from China, Cambodia, and Vietnam. They operate year-round under the guise of cross-border small commodity trading companies, moving between Southeast Asia and the four Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, Hubei, and Jiangsu.

Their operational model involves breaking down gray funds generated from overseas gambling, telecommunications fraud, and underground remittances into smaller amounts to carry across the border. They then use fictitious trade contracts, niche collectible auctions, private lending platforms, and other channels for multi-layered arbitrage laundering, eventually returning the funds overseas as legal investment income.

In the past three years, the syndicate's cumulative arbitrage scale in China has exceeded 900 million RMB. Economic investigation departments in several regions have filed cases against them, but due to the difficulty of cross-border evidence collection and the complexity of the fund links, the cases have remained in the investigation stage and have not been made public.

Reason for Hiding: Recently, the Jiangcheng Public Security Bureau, in conjunction with the People's Bank, launched a special crackdown on cross-border fund flows, freezing and tracing a large number of suspected underground bank accounts.

Two of the syndicate's transit accounts in Jiangcheng were automatically frozen by the system's risk control this Thursday. The syndicate leader judged that the local risk control window was tightening and urgently ordered the concealment of 30 million in large-denomination cash that had not yet entered the laundering process.

At 2:00 AM this Friday, two local liaisons drove a van with fake plates to transport the cash to Warehouse No. 3 of the abandoned grain and oil warehouse in the western suburbs. They hid it in the innermost corner of the warehouse, deliberately covering it with old wooden boards, sacks, and scattered debris.

They plan to wait for the risk control heat to die down before transporting the cash in batches to Fuyang, Anhui, where it will undergo final laundering through an underground bank channel at a local leather processing factory.

Key Time Window: Today from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

The two local liaisons surnamed Liu left in Jiangcheng by the syndicate consistently go to the "Old Pier" local restaurant on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street in downtown Jiangcheng for lunch every Sunday. It usually lasts until around 3:30 PM, after which they walk to the adjacent chess and card room for tea and cards. The earliest they return to the warehouse is no earlier than 4:00 PM.

With both of them away at the same time, the warehouse is unattended for a full four hours.

After 4:00 PM, the two will return to the warehouse. They originally planned to start the first batch of illicit fund transfers tonight at 8:00 PM, loading four of the bags (15 million) into the hidden compartment of a logistics truck and sending them to Fuyang under the guise of scrap recycling.

Cash Storage Details: All eight black canvas bags are piled in the southeast corner of Warehouse No. 3, within a triangular gap between an abandoned conveyor belt and the wall, covered with five damaged wooden pallets and over ten moldy sacks.

The warehouse door is an old-fashioned iron double door. The lock has been rusted and broken for years, and it is only held together with a piece of twisted wire.

There is no power access inside the warehouse, nor any alarm or surveillance equipment.

The only risk factor is an old man who collects scrap and occasionally rummages through the adjacent Warehouse No. 2. However, he usually operates in the morning and never appears in the afternoon.

Operational Logic: There is no need to come into contact with or participate in any gray business throughout the process; simply take advantage of the four-hour unattended window to discreetly remove all the illicit funds.

These funds themselves are illegal cross-border arbitrage money. The syndicate dares not report the theft through formal channels. Once reported, the public security's economic investigation will inevitably trace the source of the funds and the entry link, putting the entire cross-border fund chain at risk of being uprooted.

Their only choice is to suffer in silence. Afterward, they will never dare to openly investigate or make a fuss.

Precautions: Use an unremarkable ordinary vehicle for the trip and avoid driving any vehicle registered under your name.

Choose the small path behind the warehouse for parking, with the front of the car facing out, to avoid leaving tire tracks in front of the warehouse's main entrance.

Wear gloves when retrieving the items. Only take the canvas bags containing the money; do not touch other items in the warehouse or leave fingerprints, shoe prints, or any personal traces.

Once the canvas bags are in the vehicle, cover them with canvas or debris. When leaving, do not take the main roads; instead, take the auxiliary road of the West Suburb Outer Ring to return to the city.

Store the bags of cash separately at home. Deposit them in batches into different banks and branches, with each deposit not exceeding 500,000 and an interval of at least one week to avoid triggering anti-money laundering alerts.]

Jiang Chen read through the intelligence from beginning to end, a faint smile flickering in his eyes.

Thirty million in cold, hard cash, all of it dirty money from an overseas syndicate that had returned to the country to harvest arbitrage.

The other party is walking a tightrope. They are so guilty that they wouldn't even dare to file a normal police report, let alone proactively draw the attention of economic investigators to themselves.

It's essentially a windfall delivered right to his doorstep. The window of opportunity is between noon and 4:00 PM, providing more than enough time to leisurely have a meal, go for a stroll, and then head over to settle the matter without disrupting any other plans.

He casually exited the intelligence page, put his phone back on the nightstand, and looked down at the gentle-eyed Lu Manqi in his arms, his heart filled with tenderness.

There's no rush for business right now; he should focus on keeping her company first.

“You're awake? What are you thinking about?”

At some point, Lu Manqi had opened her eyes. She blinked her watery eyes and looked up at him, her voice carrying the soft, clingy tone of someone who had just woken up.

“Nothing, just checking some work messages.”

Jiang Chen raised his hand to brush back the stray hairs on her forehead, his fingertip tracing her brow bone. His tone was as gentle as if he were coaxing a kitten that hadn't fully woken up yet.

“Hungry? Get up and get ready; I'll take you to the newly opened Yunding Private Kitchen in the city center.”

Lu Manqi's eyes instantly lit up. She sat up in his arms and stretched lazily, the thin quilt sliding down to reveal her smooth waistline.

“Okay! I've heard about that place for a long time. Reservations are booked until the month after next; I've always wanted to go but never had the chance.”

The two of them slowly got up to wash and change.