The first time I heard of Sayit Erhan Akca, his network denied his existence.  
 

All I had was an encrypted phone handle and a tip-off from my police sources, who described him as a “ghost”.  
 

I worked my underworld sources, sending my contact details far and wide, diving deeper into conversations with organised crime figures across Thailand, Laos, and Hong Kong.  
 

Around June last year, I received a message on Signal from a number with a ghost emoji as its display picture.  
 

I quickly realised I was talking to Akca. 
 

On January 29, he sent me an extraordinary tip that news was about to break about the discovery of a van full of explosives targeted at “Israelis”.   
 

As news of a "fabricated terrorist plot" began to unfold, Akca began detailing a counter-narrative; he said the explosives were part of a trade-in, where criminals try to negotiate a deal for leniency, but he was outed in the media as the criminal mastermind of a series of antis-Semitic attacks.  
 

We travelled to Istanbul, where he’d been hiding as a fugitive, to challenge his account, in an attempt to piece together the truth of what really happened. 
 

Watch Four Corners: The Fugitive, tonight from 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.