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his country, one of the few Turkish policeman with the capacity to do so – the only other organs of state already aware of the strategic importance of cyber security were the military and civilian intelligence agencies, but they, of course, never advertised their capabilities or motives.

Together with a colleague, Bilal set himself the Herculean task of persuading the unwieldy Interior Ministry to divert some of its precious funds to the establishment of a Cyber Crime Unit. It took three years of pleading, cajoling and politicking. Fortunately, he had a collaborator who had mastered the Ottoman art of striking the right tone with the appropriate bureaucrats in the Interior Ministry.

As with all the cybercrime units springing up in police forces around the world, Turkey's new department was able to exploit the fact that virtually nobody else in the ministry understood the dark side of computers. Once given the go-ahead, the two men found themselves oddly free from outside interference, as nobody else had a clue what they were doing and they were hardly a burden on the Exchequer.

While the Inspector's own government was scarcely aware of his work, his counterparts way across the Atlantic had soon taken note of his achievements. In the summer of 2007 as police in Germany and Britain arrested the DarkMarket administrators, Matrix001 and JiLsi, Turkey's cybercrime team had put one of the most notorious cyber criminals, Maksik, behind bars. A major player on DarkMarket (he had supplied amongst others the French hacker, Lord Kaisersose in Marseilles with 'dumps'), Maksym Yastremsky from the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov had assumed he would be safe in Turkey – not only did no cyber criminal ever get arrested there, but relations between Ukraine and Turkey had never been more cordial, especially in the underworld.

The Ukrainians also adored the country for its gorgeous coast – Antalya's beautiful beaches had become a de rigueur destination for cyber thieves from both nations.

The US Secret Service had been tracking Maksik for two years. They had successfully stolen the secrets of his laptop in 2006 and then set up meetings between him and an undercover Secret Service agent in Thailand, Dubai and Turkey. In the past, cooperating with the Turkish police had proven awkward, if not downright impossible. But in arresting Maksik while he was languishing in Antalya's blistering

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