An "innocent" bystander who was mistakenly arrested by police at the scene of a street theft in Chengdu did turn out to be a criminal, but he committed a different and much more serious crime, reports Huaxi Metro News.

At about 9:30 am, patrolling police heard a woman cry out that her earrings had been stolen. Upon seeing a man dash past them, the officers ran after him and eventually caught the thief.

Just then, another man who witnessed the arrest ran off. Police thought he must be the robber's partner and chased him down as well.

"I don't know him, I was just stopping to see what was wrong," protested the trembling second man.

The first thief confessed to stealing the woman's earrings. But although he was innocent of this particular crime, a check of the online database revealed that the second man, Chen Dejun, was a fugitive involved in a 150,000-yuan (US$18,000) robbery in 1998.

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