The FBI arrested a man posing as publishers and literary agents to fraudulently obtain hundreds of early novels and other books in electronic form. Filippo Bernardini, 29, who worked at the British publishing house Simon & Schuster, was arrested yesterday when he arrived at JFK international airport.
Over the years there have been many schemes to get movies and TV shows before commercial release. A notable example includes members of the MILLENNIUM Version group who were convicted in 2019.
But while pirates who obtain video content before its official release tend to grab the most headlines, a case set in the United States reveals that valuable literary content, such as early novels, can also be the subject of attacks.
FBI arrests Italian at JFK airport
On Wednesday night, the Justice Department revealed that the FBI had arrested Italian citizen Filippo Bernardini at John F. Kennedy International Airport for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was detained in connection with a year-long plan to obtain novels and other literary works in electronic form before their commercial release.
โFilippo Bernardini allegedly posed as people in the publishing industry so that authors, including a Pulitzer Prize winner, would send him prepublication manuscripts for their own benefit. This real life story now reads as a warning, with the plot twist of Barnardini facing federal criminal charges for his wrongdoing, "said US Attorney Damian Williams.
According to US authorities, the scheme to obtain pre-release content had been in place for at least five years.
unsealed indictment
The indictment, unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that beginning in August 2016, Bernardini, who lived in London and worked on publications for Simon & Schuster, began posing as agents, publishers and others at the industry for preliminary literary information. manuscripts of your goals.
This type of content is considered extremely valuable within the industry. As the indictment explains, if unfinished work leaks to the public, any piracy can drastically undermine the publishing economy, undermine the author's reputation, and interfere with secondary markets such as film adaptations.
According to court records, Bernardini obtained hundreds of those works from hundreds of people.
Sophisticated phishing operation
In carrying out the scheme, Bernardini is alleged to have registered more than 160 domains posing as real entities and people involved in publishing, such as talent agencies, publishers, and literary headhunters. Domain names were designed to be confused with real entities by including subtle typographical errors (such as replacing 'm' with the letters 'rn') that were difficult to detect.
Along with these domains, Bernardini allegedly created email addresses in the names of actual people working at the corresponding entities and used them to contact authors, managers, agents, publishers, and publishers to request books, novels, and other unpublished content. One of his targets was an anonymous Pulitzer Prize-winning author who submitted the requested manuscript.
Email records held by the defendant show that he impersonated hundreds of people and participated in hundreds of attempts to obtain electronic copies of unpublished content. Additionally, Bernardini also lured unsuspecting people to at least two fake websites where they were asked to enter their usernames and passwords. These credentials were later used to gain illegal access to a database maintained by a New York-based exploration company.
Legal accusations
According to the indictment, the scheme ran from August 2016 until around July 2021 and was designed to obtain money and property under false and fraudulent pretexts, causing valuable and unpublished literary manuscripts to be sent and received via electronic transfers. . contrary to the law. The Grand Jury charges also contain indictments of aggravated identity theft.
On the wire fraud charge, Bernardini, 29, of London, UK, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He faces a possible consecutive mandatory sentence of 2 years in prison for the aggravated identity theft charge.
Simon & Schuster, which is not charged with wrongdoing, said it was "shocked and horrified" to learn of the allegations against Bernardini.
"Custody of the intellectual property of our authors is of primary importance to Simon & Schuster, and to everyone in the publishing industry, and we are grateful to the FBI for investigating these incidents and bringing charges against the alleged perpetrator," the company said. saying.
The prosecution can be found here
