Dear Editor,

One reads the Letter of our President (IUCr Newsletter, V18, N.1, p. 1) with great degree of appreciation of the thoughts of our President. Certainly Ton Spek is to be congratulated, and hopefully IUCr journals will not be inundated with fraudulent publications in the future. However, it is worth pointing out, a crystal structure is not just an exercise in applying crystallographic principles to a diffraction data, albeit using the acquired software, even if one is very diligent in using the software at hand. The chemistry and structural principles applicable to the final molecular structure arrived at, as well must be examined to detect the fraudulent aspect of the published work. Without indicating the actual published work in print (which will be furnished to any legitimate interested party in confidence upon request) we provide evidence of fraud based upon structural considerations and claims made in the published work. The compound is a transition metal complex with two chloro
groups. There are four carbon atoms, four oxygen atoms, and appropriate number of hydrogen atoms. The space group assigned was 4/n. Z = 4. Requiring that the unit enjoy either the 4-fold symmetry or 4/m symmetry. The crystal structure was refined using 4-fold symmetry site. The final R factor quoted was 0.034. All non-hydrogen atoms were refined anisotropically, the hydrogen atoms were refined isotropically. The two chloro groups along the four-fold polar axis have M-Cl bonds differ in length with values of 2.288 Å and 2.302 Å. The longer bond length is ascribed to the forces exerted by a hydrogen bond.

The structural results reported in themselves shout out the fraudulent aspects as to how the diffraction data allowed a refinement to an R factor of 0.034. Having the structure factors is not needed. The refinement should have resulted in singularity as the two chloro groups along the 4-fold axis have no constraint.