Yangtze River police have arrested nine people suspected of carrying out one of the largest oil tanker robberies in recent years. At about 2pm on 13 December, three men climbed on board an oil tanker from Nanjing and held the crew at knife point, while transferring 50 tons of imported crude oil onto two of their self-propelled barges before speeding away.

The police assembled a special team to solve the case and their breakthrough came in early May when they followed up a number of leads after interviewing two brothers operating in the waters of Taizhou, Jiangsu province. From the brothers, the police tracked down all nine suspects and made the arrests in late June.