He impersonated publishers and stole digital copies of hundreds of books. Nobody knows what his purpose was

Theoretically, the case of stolen manuscripts, which had never even seen the light of day before, was resolved in early January 2022. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents then detained a 29-year-old Italian at JFK Airport in New York.

Like in the movie

Filippo Bernardini was arrested under circumstances ideal for a spectacular movie scene – he got off the plane at the airport and left with the assistance of FBI personnel. Official announcements and allegations emerged: authorities accused him of cybercrime, identity theft and a longtime scam in which he impersonated various people in the publishing industry in order to illegally obtain hundreds of unpublished novels and upcoming books.

Bernardini aimed precisely but over a broad spectrum. He stole the books of the most famous ones, including the Nobel Prize winning Margaret Atwood, Stieg Larson, Sally Rooney and Ethan Hawk. At the same time, he had no qualms about extorting digital copies of novice writers’ debut novels. Although it took a long time, he was finally captured. The problem is that it is still unknown why he kept such fanatic and methodical vigilance under surveillance of writers, publishers, literary agents and talent scouts in order to obtain new books.

Federal agents described his pattern of operation: when he identified his victim, he contacted her by e-mail. He wrote from bogus addresses that were only slightly different from the domain names he was impersonating – it was a matter of one extra or rearranged letter. For example, when he impersonated an agent from the prestigious publishing house Penguin Random House, he used the domain “penguinrandornhouse.com” instead of “penguinrandomhouse.com” – instead of “m” he entered the cluster “rn”, which is a hard to catch detail – reports “La Voce di New York “. And because Bernardini had been working for the London publishing house Simon & Schuster for several years, he was well versed in the industry slang, he knew well the publishing procedures at various stages – he knew how to build a narrative in the news to make it look credible.

In this way, Filippo Bernardini forged 160 different Internet publishing domains – including those operating in New York, Sweden or Taiwan. In addition to fake mailboxes, he also created fake login pages to steal logins and passwords from victims, thanks to which he gained access to real data of the company he was targeting. Some commentators have argued that the scale of his deception is so extensive that it is hard to believe that it is the work of just one person.

Why was the mysterious thief stealing books?

Journalists began to drill down and look for information about a man who, for over five years, made no one in the publishing industry feel safe. When creating his own profiles on social media, Filipo tried to be careful: in most cases, his name is not there. However, I managed to find his profile on LinkedIn, which shows that he did a bachelor’s degree in Chinese – he obtained it at the Catholic University of Milan, and then he obtained a master’s degree in publishing at University College London.

As reported by the “New York Times”, the man worked as an Italian translator from Chinese and translated, inter alia, Rao Pingru’s biographical comic book. Since 2016, he has been working for a London publishing house, against which the FBI has not brought any charges and did not include it in the investigation. Bernardini was suspended from his work after his arrest, and the company issued an official announcement stressing that reports of his activities shocked everyone.

Michael Driscoll of the FBI in an official statement emphasizes that unpublished manuscripts are “a treasure for authors who have devoted their creativity and time to creating a work of art.” Publishers “are doing everything in their power to protect these works for their value.” According to the FBI, Bernardini, by getting unpublished texts from young authors, “tried to steal other people’s literary ideas for himself, but in the end was not creative enough to get away with it.”

Even before Bernardini was arrested, there were suspicions that the manuscripts were stolen as part of industrial espionage. However, none of the novels ever came out. Not only that – although the man stole digital copies of hundreds of novels and books, he never made any financial gain from it. The Guardian’s Stephanie Merrit speculates that perhaps Bernardini was simply looking for new stories at first, or perhaps he wanted to open files knowing that he was one of the first readers to read a book. Merritt also does not rule out the possibility that the man may be an unfulfilled writer seeking revenge for his novel being rejected. Or maybe he is looking for an idea that he will be able to submit to the publishing house as his own?

The Swedish publisher, Daniel Sandström, supposes that the whole procedure was a psychological game for the Italian, a show of strength. In his opinion, the fraudster took obvious pleasure in the fact that he was able to manipulate experienced and distinguished people on the market. Maybe he also wanted to make publishers feel unsafe and thus bully his competition, to which he wanted to show his superiority – even if he remained anonymous.

Bernardini, in his LinkedIn description, emphasizes that he loves books and is “obsessed with the written word and languages”. In his profile, he wrote that his mission was to make sure that the books “can be read and admired all over the world in all sorts of languages”. Maybe this is the explanation he has hidden from our eyes.

“I am not guilty”

Filippo Bernardini was arrested and brought before a judge in New York. He was represented in court by Hannah McCrea of ​​the federal office of advocates for those who cannot afford commercial lawyers. At the time of questioning, the 29-year-old maintained that he was innocent of the charges against him by the FBI. As reported by The Book Seller, prosecutor Daniel Nessim maintains that when Bernardini was arrested by the FBI, he was said to be asking, “I’m not an American citizen, so why should I be tried in the US?”

Judge Robert Lehrburger released him on bail of 300,000. dollars – this was secured by a pledge of Bernardini’s partner’s London house. The man gave his passport to the authorities and pledged not to leave New York – he is to stay with a friend in the West Village district. His defender told the media: “This experience is very humbling – my client is going to approach him this way.”