Overview
- The 404 Media investigation, published this week, hid an AirTag in a purchased rare-book lot and traced the shipment to an Amazon Las Vegas warehouse identified as VGT3.
- Anonymous workers at the facility told reporters they received large book shipments, cut spines for high-speed scanning, and then destroyed the originals.
- Amazon said it buys books through commercial channels to help develop its products but has not announced any change to how it acquires or handles physical books.
- The pattern is not new: court filings and prior reporting showed Anthropic ran a large destructive scanning program called Project Panama and settled a 2025 class action by authors.
- The revelations have provoked authors, booksellers and archivists to demand compensation and preservation rules, and some sellers now screen buyers to protect rare or unique copies.