The mystery has gripped the book world: for years, someone has been posing as authors and agents, editors and publishers, trying to steal unpublished book manuscripts from high-profile authors like Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan and Ethan Hawke, as well as from debut novelists and authors of more obscure works.
Now a solution to the long-standing plan is at hand. Filippo Bernardini is expected to plead guilty to wire fraud before a Manhattan magistrate on Friday, according to an email from the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York sent to victims on Tuesday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Bernardini early last year, saying he had “impersonated, defrauded and attempted to defraud hundreds of individuals” over five or more years, gaining access to hundreds of unpublished manuscripts.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment Tuesday. Bernardini’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bernardini, an Italian citizen, worked as a rights coordinator for Simon & Schuster UK, and in his phishing attempts, he showed an insider knowledge of how the industry works. He used shorthand such as using “ms” instead of manuscripts, and had a detailed understanding of how agents, publishers, editors, and translators work.
To emulate publishing pros, he made minor changes to an email address’s domain name so that an email that appeared to be from penguinrandomhouse.com actually reads Penguinrandornhouse.com, with an “rn” instead of a “m”. According to the indictment released when he was arrested, Bernardini registered more than 160 fraudulent Internet domains posing as publishers and companies. His phishing scheme dated back to at least August 2016 and lasted until the summer of 2021, the indictment said.
“They know who our clients are, they know how we treat our clients, where sub-agents fit and where primary agents fit,” Catherine Eccles, an owner of a literary scouting agency in London, told DailyExpertNews in 2020. “They are very, very good.”
Bernardini sometimes seemed to choose his targets based on deal announcements in industry publications such as Publishers Marketplace and Publishers Weekly.
After Publishers Marketplace posted a small item noting that novelist James Hanham had sold his book “Re-Entry” to Little, Brown, Hannaham received an email that appeared to be from his editor, Ben George, asking for the latest version. But the email went to an address Hannaham rarely used, so instead of replying, he wrote directly to his editor, including the document. His editor called and said he never sent the message.
Other times, Bernardini made broad attempts to access company databases. In addition to authors, Bernardini went after literary scouts and other publishing professionals. He targeted a New York City-based literary scouting company by setting up impostor login pages, which tricked victims into entering usernames and passwords, and gave him access to the company’s database, which contained plot summaries and other details. about upcoming books.
Even after Bernardini’s arrest and his expected admission of guilt, a number of questions remain. The biggest thing is his motive, as well as how he intended to profit from his thefts – if he intended to profit at all. For example, cybercriminals targeting Hollywood scripts often try to make money by posting them online and charging fans to read them. In other forms of cybercrime, thieves sell illegal works and stolen passwords on the dark web.
But in its indictment, the Justice Department never said Bernardini had attempted to sell the manuscripts on the black market or publish pirated versions. Several publishing industry professionals who were targeted told The Times that they never saw the material surface. Some in the industry following the saga speculated that he may have been trying to improve his reputation with insider knowledge of painstaking projects to get ahead in an insular world.
Bernardini claimed on his LinkedIn profile that he had a bachelor’s degree in Chinese language from Università Cattolica in Milan and a master’s degree in publishing from University College London. He had some experience as a translator and worked on the Italian translation of Chinese comics artist Rao Pingru’s memoir, ‘Our Story’. On LinkedIn, he described his passion as ensuring “books can be read and enjoyed all over the world and in multiple languages”.
