Subject: ABC Copying you is the ultimate compliment

Date: 9 Apr 01 23:30:04 -0800

From: Shelly XXXXX <XXXger@mpx.com.au>

To: adder@smuggled.com

Raymond,

I assume you watched Four corners on ABC TV tonight about the smuggling rackets in the USA. I used to think highly of Four corners and their "investigations" but that view has been diminished of late. A year ago I saw a Four corners show about John Kizon and his alleged crimes. The name was familiar to me because I'd read about him in your book Victoria Police Corruption a year earlier. OK, so the ABC were a year later than you, but I'm sure that they'd never steal material from your books and not admit it. Must have been a coincidence I suppose.

Anyway the ABC were only a year behind your own ground-breaking investigations.

But after tonight's effort on four corners, a rehash of British doco screened this year, I had to think twice about four corners.

All the smuggling stuff seemed to be straight out of your book Smuggled-2. Yes, the same names, cases, the lot. In case you missed the show, it was a rehash of the Tom Crutchfield stuff and the other USA-related stuff in your Smuggled-2 book. Yes, I recognized him from your book.

Another coincidence? Not likely!

I think that the ABC's really beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel by running five-year old stuff from your book, as a recycled piece from some BBC network.

The biggest scandal of the British piece was that it's coverage was barely a scratch compared to your own comprehensive coverage in Smuggled-2 and the earlier book you wrote.

I noted that there was not a single thing on the ABC piece about official corruption. I suppose that they pretend it doesn't exist! Pigs fly too I suppose.

You say that you are Australia's most frequently banned author. I don't deny that, but I also think that you are the most frequently plagiarized!

Keep up the good work. God help us, if you give up.