Can DNA effectively be extracted from sweat?
Sure can, you can get enough DNA from fingerprints for a forensic sample if the crime is serious enough to justify the work. I’m not sure of the rate of matches in aus, but here in nz any DNA sample taken from a crime scene has a roughly 50% chance of leading to a match of someone in the database, and an arrest. I’m guessing they are taking it so seriously due to the assault before even asking for money, that’s quite an aggravation from someone threatening violence.
This article claims to be able to PCR-amplify and genotype DNA from sweat latent fingerprints. The article’s in Chinese, so I can’t really assess how well it was done. Plus, as others have pointed out, you’d have to get samples from everyone you know so they could rule them out and NOT add them to the database.
