An Italian man who was involved in a multi-year phishing scam aimed towards fraudulently stealing hundreds of unpublished book manuscripts from popular authors such as Margaret Atwood and Ethan Hawke − has been imprisoned. The accused will be in prison for a maximum of 20 years if found guilty of wire fraud and another additional two years for a count of aggravated identity theft.
The Department of Justice while reporting on the incident, stated, that the man is 29-year-old Filippo Bernardini, was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday at the John F. Kennedy International Airport, in New York. The report also said that he was previously working at London-based publisher Simon & Schuster who allegedly impersonated editors, agents, and others personnel involved in the publishing industry to obtain manuscripts of unpublished books fraudulently.
“We were shocked and horrified on Wednesday to learn of the allegations of fraud and identity theft by an employee of Simon & Schuster UK. The employee has been suspended pending further information on the case…” Simon & Schuster said in a statement to Variety.
“…The safekeeping of our authors’ intellectual property is of primary importance to Simon & Schuster, and for all in the publishing industry, and we are grateful to the FBI for investigating these incidents and bringing charges against the alleged perpetrator.”
Following the incident, agencies said that the scheme was started in August 2016 wherein Bernardini used various fake email addresses which were linked to over 160 domains spoofing literary talent agencies, literary scouting agencies, and publishing houses.
Furthermore, he also sent phishing emails attacking employees of a New York City-based literary scouting company and obtained their sensitive data to gain access to the organization’s database of synopses and other information regarding upcoming books.
"These prepublication manuscripts are valuable, and the unauthorized release of a manuscript can dramatically undermine the economics of publishing, and publishing houses generally work to identify and stop the release of pirated, prepublication, manuscripts," the Department of Justice said today.
"Such pirating can also undermine the secondary markets for published work, such as film and television, and can harm an author’s reputation where an early draft of the written material is distributed in a working form that is not in a finished state."
