Apple’s App Store has removed nearly 40 apps from a developer called Thuat Nguyen, after other developers complained about some suspicious activity related to the sudden surge in the sales of Nguyen’s apps - which claimed 40 of the 50 top slots on the iTunes Book section over the weekend.

The apps that have been removed largely include three series of books, namely, Conan, Vien Ngoc Rong, and Thuy Hu; costing $4.99 each.

Developers who first spotted something amiss about the unexpectedly brisk sales of Nguyen’s apps said that the most surprising thing was that these apps had very few user reviews.

Talking about the issue on his blog, developer Alexandru Brie said that he first noted his app, Self Help Classics, disappearing from the list of the top 50 paid book apps after being among the top 20 apps for the nearly 18 months.

In an interview with IDG News Service, Brie further elaborated: “I had hoped things would get back to normal thinking that, eventually, these weird apps would just go out of fashion. There was a drop in sales, not only for me but for all the developers whose apps had been shifted by the 41 apps in question.”

Another developer to note the weird development was Patrick Thomson, who said in an email to Brie that apparently the App Store’s Books category had been “hijacked by an app publisher named mycompany/Thuat Nguyen.”