China: Fugitive On Run for 17 Years Found Living in Cave by Drone

September 30th, 2019

Via: BBC:

Chinese police have arrested a fugitive who’d been on the run for 17 years, after they used drones to spot his cave hideout.

The 63-year old, named Song Jiang by the police, had been jailed for trafficking women and children but escaped from a prison camp in 2002.

He had been living in a tiny cave cut off from human interaction for years.

Yongshan police received clues about Song’s whereabouts in early September, they said on their WeChat account.

Those clues led them to the mountains behind his hometown in Yunnan province in south-west China.

After regular searches failed to find anything, authorities sent additional drones to help the officers.

The drones eventually spotted a blue-coloured steel tile on a steep cliff as well as traces of household rubbish nearby.

Police then moved in on foot and found Song in a small cave where he’d been hiding for years.

Posted in Rise of the Machines, Surveillance, Technology | Top Of Page

2 Responses to “China: Fugitive On Run for 17 Years Found Living in Cave by Drone”

  1. Dennis says:
    September 30, 2019 at 5:56 pm

    “The drones eventually spotted…”
    I wonder if the video feed was scanned by AI (which picked up the anomalous colour/shape) or by humans. I imagine IR cameras could be similarly useful in such situations.

  2. Kevin says:
    September 30, 2019 at 9:36 pm

    Definitely possible, for example:

    Google Is Helping The Pentagon Build AI For Drones

    https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/03/google-is-helping-the-pentagon-build-ai-for-drones/

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