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All for the crime of loving books just a little too much (read: wire fraud and aggravated identity theft).

The second question on everyone’s minds, at least judging from a lot of the commentary on Twitter: Is Bernardini as hot as his dashing Italian name and rakish misdeeds suggest? I’ll leave you to judge for yourself, dear reader - here is what appears to be Bernardini’s Facebook profile, complete with a clear headshot of the spine collector himself.īernardini’s legal fate hangs in the balance, but he’s probably looking at some years behind bars, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office posits, “Bernardini was allegedly trying to steal other people’s literary ideas for himself.” Maybe it was just for the love of the game: one passionate bookworm’s “obsession for the written word” taken a little too far. Perhaps the knowledge was a leg up when it came to rights coordinating. The biggest question on everyone’s minds: Why? None of the stolen manuscripts made it to the black market or the dark web, and there were no ransom demands, per the Times. In his “about” section, he notes his “obsession for the written word and languages.” According to his LinkedIn page, he previously worked for Bloomsbury Publishing plc and Hay House, and he holds a master’s degree in publishing from University College London and a bachelor’s in English and Mandarin language from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. He hails from Italy but lives in London, where he works as a rights coordinator for Simon & Schuster UK, the New York Times reports. Per the Department of Justice release, the master criminal is a 29-year-old publishing-industry insider named Filippo Bernardini. So who is the so-called spine collector, the menace of book editors’ and agents’ inboxes since 2016, the sly fraudster who amassed hundreds of manuscripts by way of dubious - by which I mean illegal - methods such as phishing and sending emails from fake accounts that impersonated real people but with slightly tweaked domain names like ? (If you can’t find anything wrong with that URL, then I’m sorry, but you would have been putty in the book thief’s hands.) Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York revealed in a press release. The FBI arrested the suspect on Wednesday when he arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport Wednesday, accused of having impersonated hundreds of agents, editors and other publishing professionals online in order to obtain unpublished manuscripts for novels and other books, five years after authors and publishers began finding themselves targeted by mysterious phishing. In a shocking twist, the book thief notorious for allegedly stealing unpublished manuscripts via online trickery has been caught. Topline Filippo Bernardini, 29, of London, was arrested at New York’s John F. Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.A mysterious crime saga that has gripped the publishing world and everyone who read that “Spine Collector” New York Magazine story last August has entered its final chapter. Bernardini was allegedly trying to steal other people’s literary ideas for himself, but in the end he wasn't creative enough to get away with it.” Publishers do all they can to protect those unpublished pieces because of their value.…Mr. Driscoll, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the FBI, said, “Unpublished manuscripts are works of art to the writers who spend the time and energy creating them. The fraud charge, the more serious of the two, carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York revealed that Bernardini is being charged with two counts: wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The motive for the alleged phishing scam remains unclear none of the manuscripts seem to have been offered for sale online. Fox, and Ian McEwan, but also up-and-coming writers like Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney and Kiley Reid. Popular on Variety A man has been arrested in connection to a phishing scam that stole and attempted to steal hundreds of unpublished book manuscripts from. The alleged scam was a bizarre one, with someone posing as a figure in the publishing industry contacting authors from misleading email addresses, asking them to send copies of their works in progress.Īuthors targeted under the scheme included big names like Ethan Hawke, Margaret Atwood, Michael J. The Simon Schuster UK employee was apprehended at John F. The FBI arrested an Italian man, Filippo Bernardini, in connection with the case, the New York Times reports. Now, just over a year later, the story has taken another unexpected turn.

In December of 2020, the book world couldn’t stop talking about a seriously weird publishing story: A scam artist was luring authors to send copies of their unpublished manuscripts.