Chapter 958: Anomalies in the USA

This time Lu Chuan did not go to other places to investigate the case, but was called to the provincial hall by Li Donglin.

The special task force wasn’t fully assembled this time; apart from Lu Chuan, only Wang Song was present.

"The reason you two are specially mobilized this time is because this case is quite unusual."

Li Donglin pushed two files in front of them.

"Take a look at the data first, and I’ll briefly explain the situation of the case."

The materials Lu Chuan and Wang Song received were thick, containing a lot of details. As they read, Li Donglin explained the situation of the case to them.

"A month ago, one of our deputy directors attended a provincial government meeting and saw an internal document."

Li Donglin pointed at the first document in all the data they had.

"This is an internal data report from the Health Commission, mainly showing an overview of medical expenditures in our province’s counties and cities."

"The problem lies in some data from Ping’an County. Our deputy director noticed that the support costs for treating organ failure in Ping’an County were significantly higher than in other counties, even surpassing many prefecture-level cities."

The data mentioned by Li Donglin had been highlighted. Lu Chuan and Wang Song quickly realized there indeed was such a situation.

Li Donglin continued, "After discovering this, our deputy director brought back the related documents and asked us to investigate the medical expenditures in Ping’an County regarding this issue."

"The investigation revealed that, starting from five years ago, the expenses for organ failure treatment surged and stayed high for five years."

The related investigation lasted for a month, with Li Donglin arranging professionals to verify the data.

"However, we couldn’t find the reason for the sudden increase in these medical data, and to avoid alerting anyone, we didn’t seek official channels to verify the cause of these data changes."

Li Donglin pointed at some data above the two, continuing his explanation.

"Last week, we sent two investigators to Ping’an County to look into the situation and discovered a large population with single organs."

Wang Song put down the data, furrowed his brow, and said, "Single kidney?"

Li Donglin nodded, "Yes, single kidney."

The so-called single organ group generally refers to people who have lost one out of two specific organs.

Usually, it refers to groups with single eye, single ear, or single kidney; however, most of the time, it’s understood as groups with single kidneys.

"A sample review of several cases showed most of them started from five years ago."

Li Donglin had formed a basic assessment on the preliminary results of the investigation.

"The reasons why these people have single kidneys are unclear. In terms of probability, the likelihood of kidney disease tends to remain consistent across different regions, and Ping’an County’s geographic environment isn’t any different from surrounding counties."

Kidney disease occurrence often relates to water quality.

In probabilistic terms, a region’s kidney disease rate correlates with the local water quality, resulting in consistent kidney disease rates across regions.

"We checked data from other counties and found that the kidney disease rate in counties adjacent to Ping’an County was significantly lower. However, Ping’an County showed an abnormality."

Li Donglin’s tone was serious: "Even though we haven’t found any valuable leads yet, after consulting relevant leaders, we’ve decided to form a small special task force to investigate."

"Whether these single kidney individuals formed naturally or due to other reasons."

Lu Chuan knew what other reasons Li Donglin referred to, essentially organ smuggling and human trafficking.

Lu Chuan and Wang Song quickly read through the materials.

The two had a general understanding of the situation in Ping’an County.

Ping’an County is remote, one of the less economically developed counties in the province.

But the population isn’t scant; especially the rural population is about 500,000 people.

Along with the urban population, Ping’an County’s permanent residents total roughly 800,000.

In the province, Ping’an County is a populous county but ranks last or second to last in economic output.

Li Donglin wouldn’t directly partake in this case but handed it over to Lu Chuan and Wang Song for investigation.

The two were in the conference room, discussing what should be done next.

They could personally investigate, but it would be time-consuming. Li Donglin’s intention wasn’t that; he wanted them to oversee the case as chief commanders, drawing necessary resources from the whole province.

"I think this investigation should be kept confidential from Ping’an County’s Public Security Bureau."

This was Wang Song’s opinion.

"Because if Director Li’s guess is correct, based on current data, the number of single kidney individuals in Ping’an County isn’t small, and whether someone local is involved, whether there’s protection, we can’t say."

Lu Chuan agreed with Wang Song’s opinion.

Moreover, he believed Li Donglin thought the same, otherwise, he wouldn’t have sent people independently for investigation a week ago without involving Ping’an County’s Public Security Bureau.

Although the overall probability of issues within Ping’an County’s Public Security Bureau isn’t high, if someone inside catches wind, they might take action, hindering the case’s resolution.

"I think we should mobilize some personnel from Tianzhou City and Haizhou City."

Wang Song works at Tianzhou City’s Public Security Bureau, knows the situation there well, and can easily borrow some people.

As for Lu Chuan, he can directly transfer a team from his Criminal Investigation Team.

The High-tech Zone’s Criminal Investigation Team in Haizhou hasn’t had much activity lately, so they can come over for this case as if it’s an official trip.

Lu Chuan and Wang Song spent the next two days preparing.

By the third day of receiving the assignment, the designated personnel had gathered, and Lu Chuan had Chen Jiang lead his team over for reinforcement.

Inside the conference room, Lu Chuan was arranging and deploying work.

"Our investigation is a covert operation; we mustn’t alert colleagues in Ping’an County, plus everyone needs to maintain their confidential identity."

The two people Li Donglin sent last week only understood the situation roughly, detecting anomalies but not clarifying the specifics.

Lu Chuan’s team is tasked with thoroughly addressing this issue.

"If there’s any situation, everyone should report immediately. Should danger present itself, don’t worry about your identity."

After the necessary arrangements and deployments, the whole team left the provincial hall, headed towards Ping’an County.