THE BOOK THIEF

For six years he preyed on authors, stealing more than a thousand unpublished manuscripts from right under their noses 

- JANE VORSTER

THE Spine Collector, authorities called him. For six years he was a man who successfully racked up one crime after the other, taunting some of his victims along the way.

This chilling description may conjure up images of a hardened criminal leaving a trail of human bodies in his wake. But the truth is very much stranger than fiction in this case.

The man in question is actually a bespectacled nerdy type – and the spines he collected belong to books.

Filippo Bernardini (30), a junior employee at publishing giant Simon & Schuster UK, was arrested in New York early last year for stealing manuscripts of famous authors. The Federal District Court in Manhattan recently found him guilty of fraud and identity theft.

Over the past six years he has targeted big names such as Margaret Atwood, Sally Rooney, Ian McEwan and Ethan Hawke, as well as other lesser-known authors. He managed to steal more than 1 000 titles right from under their publishers’ noses.

Bernardini’s methods were quite simple. He sent polite emails to authors, editors, translators, and other well-connected people in the literary world, impersonating someone they knew and trusted and asked them to send him their latest drafts. In many cases, they happily obliged.

He used publishing terms such as English language rights and using abbreviations like “ms” when referring to manuscripts. He also set up multiple email accounts with cleverly disguised email addresses such @randornhouse.com instead of @randomhouse.com – essentially a phishing exercise where emails aren’t who they appear to be from.

After a year-long investigation the FBI’s cyber division unmasked him and brought him to book.