Guangzhou police reported the capture of “Aunt Mei,” a key figure in child trafficking who had been on the run for 20 years, sparking widespread attention and skepticism. Details of the case, transparency in law enforcement, and the reasons for the long unsolved case have become the focus of public attention. Some lawyers pointed out that the rampant crime of child trafficking in China is not due to lack of technology. The law enforcement agencies of the Chinese Communist Party do not prioritize protecting the lives and property of the people, but rather prioritize serving the stability of the regime.
According to reports from mainland media such as “Nanfang Daily,” on March 21, the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau announced that the key figure “Aunt Mei,” who had been involved in trafficking 9 children from 2003 to 2005, had been captured – the suspect Xie confessed to the crimes. However, this official statement did not dispel public skepticism.
The timeline of this case can be traced back 20 years. From 2003 to 2005, a gang led by Zhang Weiping committed multiple crimes in the Zengcheng district of Guangzhou and the Boluo district of Huizhou, kidnapping several boys aged 1 to 3 years old and selling them for profit through a key intermediary named “Aunt Mei.” Zhang Weiping, the mastermind, and others were arrested in 2016 and sentenced to death in 2023, but “Aunt Mei” remained missing.
A former boyfriend of “Aunt Mei” recalled that his girlfriend at the time claimed her name was “Pan Dongmei,” whether it was her real name or an alias, and said she was in her fifties and lived in Guangzhou. She would stay for two days and then leave, never allowing anyone to see her ID and avoiding being photographed.
In 2017 and 2019, the police released two composite sketches of “Aunt Mei,” but due to very limited information, they even once said they couldn’t confirm if she really existed. It wasn’t until 2025 that the police identified Xie and recently arrested her, claiming that her features matched closely with “Aunt Mei.”
Officials stated that with the progress of investigation and the application of DNA matching technology, the 9 abducted children had all been found and reunited with their families between 2019 and 2024, achieving closure for the case.
However, after the case was made public, it quickly sparked a lot of skepticism among netizens. Many commented, “Wasn’t there a previous arrest? Was it named Xie Guimei or Xie Guimei? Did I mix up the cases? I even remember a different name.”
Regarding the suspect’s concealment methods, netizens exclaimed, “It’s so terrifying! Living together for so long without ever showing an ID, how did they prepare so thoroughly to hide?”
At the same time, questions about “why the real photo has not been released yet” and “whether the 30% similarity of the composite sketch is reliable,” intensified the public’s distrust.
In response to the controversy, Beijing lawyer Song Jianmin (pseudonym) told Da Ji Yuan in an interview, “We cannot see the real case materials and procedural documents related to the handling of the case, so we cannot say whether it is a fabricated case or a political achievement case. However, public skepticism is not unfounded.”
He pointed out, “In many cases, such as smuggling cases, those who are actually brought into criminal proceedings are often just some runners, hangers-on, and legal accomplices. This case also does not rule out the possibility of the real mastermind, operators behind the scenes, or the main culprit slipping through the cracks.”
Regarding the issue of the Chinese Communist Party’s continuous upgrading of monitoring technology but failing to curb child trafficking crimes, Song Jianmin said, “In mainland China, technological advancements are mostly used to monitor the people, benefiting the regime’s rule. Although the ‘Bright Eyes’ project has been established, child abduction cases still occur, including suspicions of organ trafficking, which is not entirely baseless.”
According to public information, the so-called “Bright Eyes” project is a “public security prevention and control project” focused on public safety video surveillance networking commanded by comprehensive governance centers at the county, town, and village levels. Former Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the CCP, Chen Yixin, once demanded that the project achieve the goal of “full coverage, network sharing, full-time availability, and full control” by 2020.
The head of the Overseas Human Rights Lawyers Alliance, Wu Shaoping, told Da Ji Yuan, “The netizens’ doubts are reasonable, often the complexity lies not in the case itself, but in the lack of transparency of information and non-disclosure of procedures, making it impossible for people to judge the truth.”
He further pointed out, “In the management system of the CCP’s police force, there is a regulation on case filing rate, case clearance rate, etc. Many police officers, in order to meet their clearance rate targets and win awards, may resort to falsifying, for instance, by not filing a case, which would not affect their clearance rate.”
Wu Shaoping said, “Under the pressure of case clearance rate assessment, some case handlers may reach a conclusion first, then look for evidence, or even find a scapegoat. Why are there so many miscarriages of justice in China, including cases like Nie Shubin? Some cases are related to the case clearance rate.”
Meanwhile, a recent incident involving a child trafficking event also sparked public attention. When mainland child rescue volunteer Shangguan Zhengyi reported a cross-border female trafficking group in Zhoukou, Henan, he was intercepted and had his phone snatched by local police officers, leading to suspicions of “collusion between police and criminals.”
According to his disclosure, the group had long been engaged in cross-border human trafficking, pricing a Burmese woman at 180,000 yuan. The police had “seen the woman before” but failed to stop the transaction promptly, causing an uproar among the public.
Despite the police returning the phone and offering an apology later on, the incident raised doubts about the attitude of the public security department towards child trafficking.
It is widely believed in public opinion that the controversy surrounding the “Aunt Mei case” is not an isolated case and is not a sudden emergence of human trafficking cases.
Regarding the longstanding existence of child trafficking crimes in China, Wu Shaoping pointed out, “The long-standing idea of valuing boys over girls has led to high demand for boys, thereby giving rise to the child trafficking market. Many trafficked children and women can whiten their identities through institutional loopholes. Many buyers of women and children involved in trafficking are not held accountable as they should be, which is actually encouraging this demand.”
Questioning the contradiction between the CCP’s monitoring system and its crime-solving capabilities, he raised doubts, “During the pandemic, every individual can be tracked accurately, but when a child goes missing, these systems fail. “He mentioned, “The CCP has established the Sky Net project and other monitoring systems, but under such intensive surveillance, the annual number of missing persons in China reaches a scale of millions.”
According to public information, the so-called “Sky Net project” is the world’s largest video surveillance system built by the CCP, utilizing facial recognition, big data, artificial intelligence, and other technologies. The system connects surveillance cameras from different regions and can identify a large number of people’s identities in a very short time. By 2020, the number of public surveillance cameras across China reached 627 million.
Song Jianmin cited former Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang’s “Three Major Tasks of Public Security” proposed at the National Public Security Conference, pointing out the primary function of the public security department: the first point is to protect the regime of the Communist Party, with maintaining social stability coming next.
Song Jianmin told the reporter, “I remember Zhou Yongkang had mentioned the ‘Three Major Tasks of Public Security in the New Era’ at the National Public Security Conference. The first point is to safeguard the rule of the Communist Party, and the second is to maintain social stability. I once saw a sign outside a police station in Shenzhen clearly stating the ‘Three Major Tasks of the Public Security Department in the New Era.'”
He pointed out that the CCP prioritizes maintaining political stability as the primary task of the public security apparatus, overshadowing safeguarding the safety of people’s lives and property. This explains why cases of human trafficking in China are on the rise.
Song Jianmin concluded by saying, “If the issues of safeguarding citizens’ rights are not addressed, and the highly centralized structure of the CCP’s power is not changed, then today’s chaos will continue into tomorrow in a different form.”