Law finally catches up with robbery suspect

After 14 years on the run, a man, surnamed Pan, was caught last year and recently sentenced to 10 and a half years in jail for robbery, the Xuhui District procuratorate said on Wednesday.

The man from Anhui Province was also deprived of his political rights for three years and fined 50,000 yuan (US$7,360), it said.

Pan robbed drivers on three occasions in Shanghai in 2005, the procuratorate said.

In April of that year, the then 25-year-old robbed a female driver with a knife. He got 200 yuan (US$30 at today's exchange rates) from the woman and took her car to escape, according to prosecutors.

In the following month, Pan robbed another driver using a similar method with a man he knew from an Internet cafe. They took the victim's car to escape and then divided the spoils, about 1,000 yuan, prosecutors said.

Several months later, he bought a toy gun for use in a third robbery attempt, which failed.

All victims escaped without physical injury and called the police, the authority said.

The police had a physical description and DNA of Pan, as well as other physical evidence, but Pan and his accomplice remained elusive.

In May 2019, police in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, took DNA samples from Pan for an administrative case. Half a year later, police found Pan’s DNA matched the robber cases 14 years ago. On November 15, Pan was arrested by Xuhui police.

Pan's accomplice remains at large, procuratorate said.