But on March 24, the Toronto researchers said, they contacted intelligence officials in India and told them of the spy ring they had been tracking.
When he failed to return or make contact, the company contacted US intelligence officials, whose agents tried to trace him.
"All of this speaks to better funding, it speaks to better contacts," one intelligence official said.
Partly because of their history and partly because of more limited budgets, the French rely more on human contacts, local intelligence and human resources and less on automated phone tapping and surveillance than the Americans do.
On top of that, Mr Zeman may, say his friends, ask all his ministers to list their past links with foreigners, contacts with intelligence services, past and present business dealings, and even details of extra-marital affairs.
But in a recent interview with the BBC, Jalaluddin Haqqani's son and its current leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, has said there have "never been contacts by intelligence agencies of other countries (including Pakistan) which could be effective for us".
The committee raised money, forged documents, maintained contacts with intelligence agencies and ran safe houses.
In the latest controversy surrounding the film, Reuters has learned that the committee will examine records charting contacts between intelligence officials and the film's director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal.
One of the main leaders of the network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, told the BBC in an interview published on Monday that the Haqqanis "have been contacted and are being contacted by intelligence agencies of many Islamic and non-Islamic countries, including the U.S., asking us to leave the sacred jihad and take an important part in the current government".
The end, then, is contact with Intelligence, not with something that transcends Intelligence, as taught by Plotinus, Ismāʿīlism, and mysticism.
