SOFTLY SOFTLY

Istanbul when he arrived from Turkey's capital, Ankara, aiming to discover the distribution network for Cha0's skimming operation.

This being Istanbul, however, Inspector Şen was looking for a needle in a haystack. Legal, semi-legal and illegal export/import had for centuries been a trademark of the city's economy - shifting goods out and bringing them in. Since the 1960s vast quantities of white goods had found their way to Istanbul through the Balkans from Germany, where some two million Turks had migrated since the 1960s as Gastarbeiter. But the volume of this trade had gone through the roof since the collapse of the Soviet Union: new markets had opened up in Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and in several Central Asian republics with their Turkic languages.

But Bilal had to start somewhere and so he chose the three biggest shipping firms in the city. First, he and his assistants spent half a day training the staff of the courier companies in the art of spotting a skimmer. They are most often registered as spare parts for vehicles or as machine tools. The staff were given skimmers to handle, to get used to their weight and shape.

Unproductive days went by and Inspector Şen decided he should return to headquarters in Ankara. Weeks passed and he began to experience a familiar despondency. But then, just over a month later, some good news came through from Istanbul - a man had entered one of the shipping companies with a package bound for Finland. It turned out to be a skimming device. The receptionist was calling from the back office with the news that the package had also included a PIN pad.

'Bingo!' thought Bilal, telling the receptionist to let the sender go: they had already captured his image on CCTV. After many months the Inspector had at last hit upon a lead. Unsurprisingly the man had used a fake ID, but then Bilal got a second break. The suspect had also given the courier company three phone numbers - and one of them was a real. They checked the name to identify the legal owner of the phone: it didn't seem to belong to a criminal. But they monitored the mobile number, and the man with the package was using it - the phone was active.

'This might be the guy who will lead us to Cha0,' thought Bilal. But he was faced with a dilemma. It was at about this time that the news organisation, Haber 7, published the photograph of the