Filippo Bernardini may face anywhere from two to twenty years in prison after he swindled authors of their unpublished book in an online scam.
Many acclaimed authors have fallen victims to Filippo Bernardini’s phishing strategy including Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists.
Novelists and Authors were targeted by an inside person at Simon and Schuster in order to receive unpublished work-in-progress drafts. The FBI is still stumped over the reason behind the online scam as Filippo never sold them on the black market.
Though he started his online scam side business in 2016, he was only recently caught and arrested in New York at the John F. Kennedy International Airport.
He may have wanted to steal their idea and publish his own book but lacked in the creative department.
EXCLUSIVE It has baffled the book world for years. Somebody has been stealing unpublished manuscripts by impersonating editors, authors, agents and scouts online. Today, the FBI arrested Filippo Bernardini, a young rights coordinator at a major publisher. https://t.co/zlEA9N5GWr
— Elizabeth A. Harris (@Liz_A_Harris) January 5, 2022
Filippo Bernardini Employee At Simon And Schuster Steals Unpublished Books
After five years of eluding the FBI as well as Novelists, Filippo Bernardini was arrested on Wednesday under the charges of identity theft and wire fraud.
He has been suspended from his workplace. Simon and Schuster was not mentioned in the indictment and has not been blamed for the theft of intellectual property.
Since August of 2016, Bernardini has registered over 160 fraudulent internet domains to impersonate others changing the name of well-known websites and replacing a letter or two so that it appears the same to others if not looked at carefully.
In five years, he managed to dupe Novelists into sending hundreds of unpublished drafts of manuscripts. He has gone down in the eyes of the public for misusing insider’s knowledge.
Tommaso de Benedetti’s thoughts on Filippo Bernardini pic.twitter.com/E00jOnNThC
— Alex Shephard (@alex_shephard) January 6, 2022
Insight On Filippo Bernardini – Age And Family
Filippo Bernardini is 29-year-old in age. The Italian citizen was recently arrested after he was suspected of swindling unpublished works of Authors after presenting them with a fake email that looked real enough.
Details about his family are not known at the moment.
Filippo Bernardini Linkedin Account.
Filippo Bernardini is on Linkedin under the account name Filippo B. with a total of 198 connections. According to his account, he has a bachelor’s degree in the Chinese language and a master’s degree in publishing.
He has been a part of Simon and Schuster for a total of two years and four months now. However, he only started working as a Rights Coordinator in March of 2021.
His passion for words and languages led him to pursue a career in international rights management which functions as an important component of the publishing industry.
He has also taken on projects related to the translation of novels and corporate documents.