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They were confusing thefts for no obvious reason or payoff, and they took place out of politeness, not particularly in the lucrative publishing world. stealing unpublished book manuscripts.
The thefts and theft attempts were made primarily by email, by a scammer impersonating publishing professionals and targeting authors, editors, agents, and literary researchers who might have novels and other book drafts.
The mystery can be solved. On Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Filippo Bernardini, a 29-year-old publishing expert, saying he had “impersonated, defrauded, and attempted to defraud hundreds of people” for five years or more, and obtained hundreds of unpublished manuscripts. period.
Arrested this afternoon after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Mr. Bernardini was charged with electronic fraud and aggravated identity theft in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. It was unclear whether he had a lawyer.
According to the indictment, Mr Bernardini, an Italian national, worked in London as the rights coordinator for a major international broadcaster. He said in his Twitter bio that he works for Simon & Schuster UK.
Simon & Schuster did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He was not charged with misconduct in the indictment.
According to the indictment, Mr. Bernardini would send e-mails impersonating real people working in the publishing industry – for example, a particular editor – using fake e-mail addresses to spoof manuscripts. It would use slightly tweaked domains like penguinrandornhouse.com instead of penguinrandomhouse.com – it would replace “m” with “rn”. In the indictment, it was stated that he registered more than 160 fake internet domain names impersonating publishing professionals and companies.
Mr. Bernardini also targeted a New York City-based literary discovery company that was trying to access its database cataloging upcoming projects, movie rights and how much the proposals were selling for. He set up fake login pages that asked his victims to enter usernames and passwords, which gave broad access to Mr. Bernardini’s reconnaissance company’s database.
Many in the publishing industry who receive phishing emails indicated that the person who wrote them was clearly familiar with the industry. The thief sometimes used a common abbreviation such as “ms” for the manuscript and understood how a book moved from one point to another on its way to publication.
The plan has baffled people in the publishing world for years. Works by high-profile writers and celebrities such as Margaret Atwood and Ethan Hawke were targeted, but story collections and works by first-time writers were also targeted. When the manuscripts were successfully stolen, none of them appeared on the black market or the dark web. The ransom demands were never fulfilled.
Early knowledge in a rights department can be an advantage for an employee trying to prove his worth. For example, publishers compete and bid to publish their work abroad, and knowing what’s coming, who’s buying what and how much they’re paying can give companies an edge.
“What he’s stealing is basically a huge amount of information that any publisher, anywhere, can use to their advantage,” said literary researcher Kelly Farber.
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