Man in China steals 1.7 kg of gold, hides it behind ancestral tombstone

By Phan Anh December 22, 2025 | 04:37 pm PT

A man in central China has been arrested after breaking into a jewelry store at night, stealing more than 1.7 kilograms of gold and hiding the stash behind his family’s ancestral tombstone to pay off gambling debts, police said.

The burglary was reported at around 9 a.m. on Dec. 13 in Huangpi District, Wuhan, according to the Wuhan Public Security Bureau’s Huangpi District branch, China Daily reported.

Police found a large hole smashed through the wall near the jewelry store’s main entrance, with display cases ransacked. Preliminary checks showed that about 1,783 grams of gold, worth more than 1.7 million yuan (US$240,000), had been stolen, Sina reported.

Investigators said the store’s electrical circuit breaker had been deliberately damaged, cutting power and disabling surveillance cameras. A hole large enough for a person to crawl through had been knocked through the wall connecting the jewelry store to a neighboring mobile phone repair shop, whose lock had also been forced open. Police believe the suspect first broke into the phone shop before entering the jewelry store through the wall.

After reviewing more than 20 hours of surveillance footage from nearby areas, police identified a white sedan that arrived in Wuhan a day before the burglary, parked near the store and quickly left after the theft. Officers said the driver’s attempt to shield his face with a sun visor while driving raised further suspicion.

Police later identified the suspect as a man surnamed Wei, a native of Suizhou, who had a criminal record. He was arrested on the evening of Dec. 16 in Tongshan County, with assistance from police in Xianning.

Wei confessed that he carried out the burglary in the early hours of Dec. 13. He told police he sold more than 400 grams of the stolen gold to pay off part of his gambling debts, according to Chinese media reports.

Wei added that he wrapped the gold in cloth and buried them behind the tombstone of his family’s ancestral grave in Suizhou.

Police traveled to Suizhou the following day and recovered more than 1.3 kilograms of gold jewelry hidden behind the tombstone. Authorities also seized most of the cash Wei obtained from selling part of the stolen gold.