foreword

In 1999, I was in the last year of my five-year mandate as Secretary-General of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL). An American friend who thought we might have mutual interests introduced me to Akli. We met for lunch in Paris, and after the usual introductory niceties, we began to discuss the possible connections between what Akli was doing professionally and the essence of my own role at the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France. In my previous function at Scotland Yard in London, I had worked for some period in the Criminal Intelligence Division and was naturally interested in any developments where the exploitation of intelligence analysis could be applied to Interpol databases.