Tokyo - Japanese police were embarrassed at the weekend by revelations that they sub-contracted the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult to write software for supposedly secret operations.
As a result of this breach of security, the cult - public enemy No 1 since it killed 12 people and injured thousands of others in a nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 - gained access to classified information and earned two million yen (£16,000) from the police into the bargain.