At 9:10 am on May 10, 2017, Zhang Lincang, a fugitive of the “502” case and A-level wanted criminal of the Yunnan Provincial Public Security Department, was arrested in the mountain area of Songming County, Yunnan by local authorities. DJI drones played an important role in apprehending the criminal. 

On May 5, the UTC Anning Campus, Kunming, received a request from the police department’s arrest team and immediately organized professional pilots to assist in the investigation. During the arrest, the UTC Anning Campus organized a team with six professional pilots, four of whom with over 600 logged flights. Beginning on the evening on May 5, they spent five full days and nights, flying drones over 100 times and searched an area over 200 km before finally locating Zhang in hiding. 

The group leader Zhao Penghui and other team members previously attended customized security and protection trainings at the UTC Anning Campus. There are many training courses that have played significant roles in this arrest, such as large-scale UAV search, long-distance UAV search, key area investigation, basic mountain search, forest search, and infrared thermal imaging detection in complex environments. 

Another course at the UTC, aerial mapping, was also used in the successful investigation. The drones created real-time orthophoto map to help the police assess the situation on site, which contributed to personnel deployment and strategic planning. The leader of the UTC Anning Campus said that this arrest was a successful exploration of UAV applications in the field of police investigation, adding to the growing list of possibilities for industrial drones.