BILAL IN PITTSBURGH

- the longest in the world. This was odd, as with his small stature and thoughtful manner, Inspector Şen resembled a Turkish Hercule Poirot more than the traditional image of a tough Balkan cop moulded by rural bandits, urban narco syndicates and a brutalised criminal-justice system.

Police college had proved a taxing regime. However, what pained Bilal most were not the spartan quarters and unforgiving assault courses, but the complete absence of computers. From a young age he had taken any opportunity to sneak into the local games arcade in his home town of Eskişehir that sits midway between Istanbul and Ankara in northern Anatolia. He was only about six years old when he came across the game River Raid. Every minute of his spare time was spent flying a two-dimensional fighter plane up a river, firing on tiny helicopters, ships, tanks and dirigibles while trying to refuel at the same time. Gripped by that mysterious fusion of repetition and occasional reward that keeps so many children, adolescents and young adults glued to their computer screens, Bilal had an obsession with games that mirrored that of many proto-hackers at the same time. Equally, he was gripped by the same determination to win.

Perhaps that stubbornness helped the raw recruit through his first posting at a village police station in the middle of Anatolian nowhere. Although this was by now the mid-1990s, the only machine here was an ancient manual typewriter. Taking down witness statements was considered below his dignity as an officer, but Bilal was so determined to improve his typing that he spent many an hour banging on those keys. When he wasn't doing that, this remarkable autodidact was teaching himself Mandarin.

When he applied to join Ankara's elite Organised Crime Unit, the chief there asked Bilal why he was learning Chinese. 'With China opening its doors to the outside world,' he answered, 'we are soon going to need Mandarin-speakers in the Department for Organised Crime.' That reply swung it for him and he landed the job.

Once in the Turkish capital, the young detective signed up for a Masters at Ankara University, again off his own bat and in his spare time. He selected a topic unknown and unstudied in Turkey – The Opportunities and Risks of E-Government – in which he considered the relationship between privacy, civil rights and cybercrime.

Bilal Şen began to monitor the proliferation of Internet crime in