David Leppan had a simple idea: track corruption. In the late 1990s, as a young salesman, he begins collecting the names of corrupt politicians. What starts as a small, homegrown effort slowly takes on a life of its own. With the help of his wife and retired mother, the project grows beyond its modest beginnings.
It becomes World-Check.
Designed as a database to help banks and governments monitor financial risk, World-Check expands rapidly after 9/11, when fear and security concerns reshape global finance. Demand for surveillance surges. What begins in a spare room evolves into a dominant force in financial intelligence, compiling millions of names and ultimately selling for half a billion dollars – within an industry now worth billions worldwide.
Yet the scale of its success brings consequences David does not fully anticipate.
Now living in Ibiza, surrounded by sunlight and art, he watches as artificial intelligence accelerates the very systems he helped build. The tools once designed to flag risk become more powerful, more automated, and more opaque. In response, David launches a new venture promising to remove people from databases – an effort that raises an uncomfortable question: is he correcting the system he created, or continuing to operate within it?
The Data Mercenaries unfolds on three interconnected levels: a story of ambition and its cost; a cautionary tale about unintended consequences in technology; and a timely examination of how big data and AI increasingly determine who has access, power, and freedom. As tech giants consolidate influence over global systems, David’s journey feels less like a closed chapter and more like a mirror held up to the present.
