He was her suave fiance – the strip club owner, prestige car dealer and big-time ecstasy manufacturer.

One of Australia's most infamous Bonnie and Clyde sagas is far from over with Steven Spaliviero revealing he is still desperately in love with Charlotte Lindstrom and exposing, for the first time, the secret ways their relationship continued in prison even after she rolled on him.

Nine years into a 16-year sentence for manufacturing ecstasy, Spaliviero, 50, has published an e-book containing stunning revelations about his relationship with Lindstrom, his sprawling drug empire and how he became the biggest drug cook in Australia.

And Spaliviero says that, at its heart, the gripping memoir and expose, Pills of God, is an audacious attempt to reach out to Lindstrom, who was deported to Sweden in 2010 and is believed to have changed her identity and eliminated all traces of her former self.

The besotted pair lived the high life in Sydney – fast cars, expensive clothes, drug-fuelled parties – until Spaliviero was arrested in 2005 for cooking ecstasy in a warehouse in Riverstone.

Lindstrom, 18 years his junior, was charged with organising to have two witnesses killed and she was given a three-year sentence in exchange for becoming the Crown's star witness in her fiance's drugs trial.

Images of an anorexic Lindstrom, whose weight had sunk to 37.5 kilograms, being led into a court with a bullet-proof vest swamping her tiny frame were beamed around the world.

The sensational trial was followed by TV documentaries in Australia and Sweden, a 60 Minutes interview with Lindstrom when she was deported and several book and movie offers that she never accepted.

For the first time, Spaliviero has revealed the anguished love letter Lindstrom sent him from Mulawa Women's Prison in 2007, explaining why she made the bombshell decision to turn on her fiance.

"I've tried to block you out but I can't, the truth is I still love you with my whole heart and soul and I know my heart will be broken forever ... I'm a destroyed girl," she wrote in one of 14 letters from prison.

"But the only person who can help me now is me. I'm not prepared to spend 5-8 years in jail for something I did for love."

Lindstrom told Spaliviero she was still madly in love with him but feared she would not survive if she stayed in prison any longer.

"In some stupid way, I'm still hoping that when all this is over and we are both out and free, we will find a way back to each other. But for now, I just have to try and keep myself out.

"I hope you respect me for that, and you understand and don't blame me for what I'm doing. I said I would die for you. I'm still alive, but my soul is broken so I might as well be dead. But for the sake of my family, I can't die. They don't deserve that."

In Pills of God, Spaliviero reveals that Lindstrom's about-face felt like "a blunt knife plunging into my heart". However, he concocted a plan to pretend to turn Crown witness in order to be moved to the protective wing where she was being housed.

There, he continued to communicate with Lindstrom through jail sweepers, passing a secret note asking her to bang her cup on her cell bars five times one morning if she still loved him.

"Words can't describe how I felt that day," he writes, after hearing five taps. "I had goose bumps all over my body."

Even today, Spaliviero says he has photos of Lindstrom on the walls of his cell at Cooma prison and dreams about her most nights.

"The last time our eyes met in the courtroom, she had given me a cold look. But I am a dreamer and fairytales are all I have to keep me alive in prison," he wrote. "Her coming back to me is against the odds, but it's a chance I have to take."

Lindstrom had been in Australia on a working holiday for just days in 2003 when Spaliviero wooed her during a job interview at his Pitt Street gentleman's club, Minx.

They lived a glamorous life in a $3 million waterfront apartment decked out with Chinese antiques, where Spaliviero reveals he would hold wild all-night parties and serve MDMA punch.

Lindstrom had a penchant for designer dresses and expensive jewellery and the loved-up couple would even buy their chihuahua dinner every night from Sushi-e, he says.

However, it was all funded by secret ecstasy manufacturing, most of which has never been uncovered.

THE ECSTASY WE NEVER KNEW ABOUT

Although he was convicted of manufacturing 44 kilograms of ecstasy at the lab in Riverstone, Spaliviero's book contains explosive revelations that his drug empire stretched back to 2001 and claims he made tens of thousands of kilograms of ecstasy that police never knew about.

He says he first learnt to cook ecstasy in 1998 while sharing a cell with a Swiss drug cook in California's Avenal State Prison, where Spaliviero was serving time for his first crime – running a stolen Porsche racket.

He kept in touch with the former cellmate right up until his arrest in 2005, even travelling to China with him in 2004, where they bought 500,000 kilograms of ecstasy precursor – enough to make $35 billion worth of drugs.

The majority of the chemicals were shipped to Switzerland by the cellmate -however, Spaliviero managed to import 10,000 kilograms to Australia, enough to make 10 tonnes of ecstasy.

He reveals that he moved $5.5 million to China by hiding cash in foam boxes of live lobsters that a company at the Sydney Fish Markets exported.

He also reveals how he set up fake identities and companies to import the chemicals and buy pill presses. He was helped along the way by a colourful array of real estate agents, corrupt cops and criminals he met at Minx, where he would launder his drug money.

One shipment was intercepted in 2005 and Spaliviero was charged, but he says he attempted one final drug reaction at Riverstone while on bail because his assets had been seized.

He believes it was the largest single reaction attempted in the world – a 500-kilogram haul producing a pile of ecstasy more than a metre high. However, a fire broke out in the factory.

As he fled in a panic, with a shopping trolley containing garbage bags of 75 kilograms of ecstasy, he left a vital clue behind - his Louis Vuitton sneakers.

He was only ever convicted of manufacturing 44 kilograms at Riverstone, the mere scraps that were left behind when his associate, Jeff Klower, who has never been found, also fled.

In his book, published earlier this year, Spaliviero says the reason he kept going was simple: greed.

"Do you want to know why I committed all my crimes? I could blame the drugs and my not-so-perfect upbringing but the simple truth is that I loved it!

"I loved the rush of stealing fast cars. I loved the feeling of adrenaline releasing into my blood as I watched the needle on the gauge climb towards the reaction vessel's breaking point. I loved the smell of money. I loved the security I felt knowing I had boxes of cash stored on top of cupboards. Most of all I loved the gorgeous women I met when I was rolling in money."

Spaliviero is eligible for parole in 2018.

'Proceeds of crime' legislation

Prisoner and convicted ecstasy cook Steven Spaliviero says he will not receive any money for writing and publishing his explosive memoir and love story, Pills of God.

Proceeds of crime legislation allows the Director of Public Prosecution to seize literary proceeds derived by criminals who write about their offences.

Speaking to The Sun-Herald through his lawyer, Chris Ford, Spaliviero said he had an arrangement to send proceeds offshore.

Mr Ford said the rights for the e-book, which is being sold online for between $9 and $12, were given to a publishing and entertainment company in Hong Kong that is receiving all proceeds. He said profits will be donated to anti-violence charity Enough is Enough.

"Steven will not receive any money from the sale of the novel," he said.

Mr Ford said the book has received a great deal of interest in Sweden and a Swedish filmmaker has expressed interest in turning it into a film.

Ken Marslew, founder of Enough is Enough, said he met Spaliviero during workshops that his charity runs in prison. The former gentleman's club owner and ecstasy kingpin told Mr Marslew that the program saved his life.

"The next thing I know, he sent me a letter from prison saying he was so moved by the presentation that he wanted to help the organisation," Mr Marslew said.

Mr Marslew said Spaliviero had huge realisations about the hurt he had caused.

In Pills of God, he says he was able to keep manufacturing and selling drugs because he lied.

"I lied to myself that I could do it; lied that I was strong enough, smart enough and that no one would ever catch me."

The Sun-Herald understands Spaliviero is now considered a model prisoner and Commissioner Peter Severin personally presented him with two certificates in 2012 for completing diplomas in counselling, psychology and life coaching.

"Studying made the 18 hours a day locked in the cell go faster," Spaliviero wrote. "It also took my mind off Charlotte."

A DPP spokesman said the matter has been sent to the NSW Police to investigate.