Not even my crime exposé book shielded me from these scamsters

The praise-filled pitch is almost too good to be true – a literary representative randomly contacts you and is eager to promote your book or collaborate further.

That lavish praise, though, is often a giveaway that the pitch is fake, and a scammer’s tactic to actually try to lure you in.

This buttering up tactic is nothing new.

It is a scam, and with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), fraudsters are increasingly targeting authors, sparking warnings internationally from writers and literary platforms.

Scammers often make contact via email, sometimes from addresses that mimic legitimate publishers and agents, but look closely and there is usually a single letter missing in that email address.

I’ve been targeted

They offer what appear to be legitimate services and try to get you to pay, or to get your personal details, as is typical in phishing style.

I have been targeted several times.

This started the day after my fifth book on organised crime, The Untouchables: Drug Lords, Dirty Cops, and South Africa's Darkest Secrets, was published on 17 August 2026. (I have not experienced the same with my previous four books.)

Spotting a swindler

What to watch out for:

• Double-check: A simple online search of the publishing house or individual contacting you may show warnings from those agencies that they are being impersonated in scams.

• Unsolicited approaches: analyse these carefully and try to independently confirm whether the person sending them is who they purport to be.

• Hyperbolic praise: if a pitch looks too good to be true, it may be just that. If the language is very slick, the pitch may be AI-generated, a red flag.

• Email addresses: legitimate publishers and agents won’t necessarily use Gmail addresses. Scamsters may adopt email addresses similar to those they’re impersonating, but with small discrepancies. Look carefully.

Report suspicious emails as spam or phishing. Gmail gives you the option to do this – click the three dots to the right of a received email to see where. If you have lost money in a scam, inform your bank and report it to the police.

It did not get to the point where I was asked to pay, but attempts were made to lure me in, which prompted me to write this article.

I was emailed purported book promotion offers even while typing this (over days coinciding with National Book Week in South Africa).

On 7 September I received two emails that were obvious red flags – both typically AI-style, hyper-complimentary and sent from a Gmail and a Yahoo address.

‘AI supercharging traditional scams’

This week Cheryl Davis, general counsel for The Authors Guild, the oldest and largest professional organisation for published writers in the US, told Daily Maverick that they have noted an uptick in scam reports over a year.

“Email married with generative AI can make it easier for scammers to disseminate their approaches more widely, and enables them to create realistic-appearing materials at a larger scale and at a faster rate,” she said.

“Generative AI has supercharged the traditional scam.”

Technology also made it easier for scammers to create websites, adding some legitimacy to their pitches.

“The communications [from scammers] now appear more believable and realistic to the authors, and are usually full of praise about the work in question,” Davis said.

Victoria Strauss of industry watchdog Writer Beware, which warns about literary scams, recently wrote that these had evolved. (Daily Maverick was unable to get direct comment from her before publication.)

“In addition to marketing offers, they now include book club and review scams and a wide variety of impersonation scams, where the goal of initial contact is to steer writers through one or more referrals into paid editing or marketing arrangements,” said Strauss.

She explained that these scams were “built on volume” meaning that “only a small fraction of writers need to be fooled in order for the fraudsters to make money”.

She previously posted an extensive list of publishing companies and individuals who had been impersonated – the names of an agent and publisher stood out for me as these had been used in scam pitches that I received.

Contact with a con?

It started on 18 August, the day after my book The Untouchables became publicly available.

I received an unsolicited email from someone at a platform I won’t name yet (because I cannot prove this specific setup is a scam) but it has the hallmarks of one.

Admittedly, I got excited when I first spotted this email after it landed.

But the wording was too slick and devoid of personality – it seemed AI-generated.

The sender wanted an interview with me on their online platform and requested, among other things, a soft copy of my book The Untouchables, or two sample chapters. (This raised immediate concerns about content theft.)

I established that the platform’s website, laden with AI imagery, seemed to have been created only a couple of months ago, and while I was not asked to pay anything, I suspected this would happen later.

So, I asked for details about the platform – how long it had been up and running, and what fees they charged authors.

The first question was ignored, but the email response explained that the most basic author package offered cost $99, while an elite package involving a media tour cost $305.

Even if the initial offer to feature my book on the platform was legitimate, there was ample reason to be sceptical.

$48m fraud case

A case playing out in the US reiterates why.

In January last year, three individuals were indicted there for allegedly defrauding senior citizens who paid a fee, thinking their manuscripts would be turned into published books or films.

The trio was allegedly linked to entities including “PageTurner, Press and Media LLC”.

In May this year, one of the three, Michael Cris Traya Sordilla, 34, of the Philippines, pleaded guilty.

According to a US Attorney’s Office press statement, Sordilla admitted that through “phony” entities, he “conspired to perpetrate a book publishing scam that caused losses of more than $48-million to more than 800 victims” throughout the US. 

 US Attorney Adam Gordon at the time said: “The defendants didn’t just steal money – they stole dreams, leaving victims with empty promises and devastating losses.

“Today’s guilty plea delivers justice for victims and serves as a warning that legitimate publishers and filmmakers do not demand upfront fees.”

Impersonating editors

Back to the unsolicited messages I have recently been receiving.

A day after the first proposal, I received another email on 19 August, apparently from US-based Acre Books.

Again, the flattering words came across as AI-generated.

It said in part about my books: “I recently spent some time looking into your work, particularly Man Alone: Mandela’s top cop, and what immediately stood out was the depth of investigative experience behind the book…

“With The Untouchables now adding another chapter to your body of investigative work, I would be very interested to learn more about your current and forthcoming projects, as well as whether you are represented by a literary agent.”

The Acre Books website, meanwhile, warned that “scammers have started impersonating editors, including us, as a way to target writers”.

The statement added: “If you receive such a contact, realise that it’s likely not us. We’re not currently directly soliciting writers or agents.”

I reported that 19 August email address used as phishing via a Gmail function, and when I tried mailing back last week, I got an automated response saying “the address couldn’t be found, or is unable to receive mail”.

There’s more.

On 27 August I received an email from someone wanting to give The Untouchables “the visual authority it deserves”, claiming that the person had “already mapped out a tailored visual storyboard”.

I was asked if I would be interested.

(For the purpose of this news article? Yes.)

Missing letter = crucial clue

I received another laudatory email, this time purportedly from UK-based Atlantic Books, about a week later, on 3 September.

This one referred to my first book, saying in part: “I recently came across The Enforcers” and expressed interested in its investigation into Cape Town’s nightclub security industry…

“I was particularly interested in the book’s wider examination of how violence and influence extend beyond the traditional gangland areas and into everyday spaces across Cape Town,” said the email.

This person added that if the rights to The Enforcers were still available, they “would be pleased to review the full manuscript for consideration with Atlantic Books”.

At this point, I was intent on writing this article, so I asked the sender, whose email address was incongruent with those used by Atlantic Books, for proof that they actually worked there, given the number of scams targeting authors.

I mentioned that I was a journalist looking into this.

They then CC’d their “official” email address in response, but there was a telltale omission – it was missing a single letter from the real address.

(I reported the email addresses and tried alerting the individual who seems to have been impersonated.)

The Atlantic Books website also had an alert about scammers making false book acquisition offers.

It warned: “We are aware of reports that fraudsters are impersonating Atlantic Books staff, literary agents and Atlantic authors to target writers, illustrators and other members of the wider publishing community…

“If someone purporting to be an Atlantic Books staff member comes to you with an out-of-the-blue offer, be extremely cautious.”

$484m loss in Africa

While these scammers targeting authors have global reach, AI cons are amplifying in Africa.

International police organisation Interpol’s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026 sounded this alarm.

It warned that AI is enabling more than half of the cybercrime – 55% – in Africa and that “we are witnessing a defining shift: cyber-criminality has evolved from isolated incidents into an industrialised, borderless ecosystem”.

The Interpol report said: “The proliferation of AI has fundamentally altered the threat landscape.

“Cybercriminals are now deploying AI-powered tools to automate phishing campaigns, generate convincing deepfakes for identity fraud and social engineering.”

Cybercrime costs have surged.

Between 2024 and 2025, reported cybercrime-related losses more than doubled, rising from $192-million to $484-million.

“The number of identified victims increased from 35,000 to 87,000, driven primarily by AI-facilitated scams, credential harvesting, and automated social engineering campaigns,” the report added.

Read more: AI scams surge — Nelson Mandela University experts warn people to adopt ‘zero trust mindset’

When it comes to AI-driven scams targeting authors, there is a bitter irony to the fake pitches I received.

My book The Untouchables exposes how organised crime saturates just about everything – and those scammer messages now underscore that.

Those AI-slick emails indicate just how untouchable those perpetrators think they are. DM