AI-Powered Voice Cloning Scam Targets Italian Business Elite

Italian Police Freeze Cash From AI-Voice Scam That Targeted Business Leaders

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian police have found and frozen nearly one million euros ($1.04 million) that was wired to a foreign bank account by a leading businessman after he fell victim to an artificial intelligence scam, officials said on Wednesday. Fraudsters used AI to mimic the voice of Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, making calls that claimed to seek urgent financial assistance for the release of kidnapped Italian journalists in the Middle East. Some of Italy's most prominent business figures, including fashion designer Giorgio Armani and Prada co-founder Patrizio Bertelli, were targeted, prosecutors in Milan said earlier this week. However, only Massimo Moratti, the former owner of soccer club Inter Milan, was believed to have sent the requested funds. Officials said they thought it would be hard to retrieve the missing funds, but on Wednesday they revealed the cash had been located to the Netherlands. "I'm very pleased that the money fraudulently taken from an entrepreneur, using my falsified voice and name, has been traced to a Dutch account and completely frozen," Crosetto said on X. "Excellent work by the magistrates and the police forces." There was no immediate comment from Moratti, who had transferred two payments totalling almost one million euros, under the mistaken belief that he would be reimbursed by the Bank of Italy, sources familiar with the case have said. Moratti filed a legal complaint last week after realizing he had been duped. "It all seemed real. They were good. It could happen to anyone," he told Italian daily La Repubblica at the weekend. The scam involved fraudsters posing as officials from the defence ministry, with calls that appeared to originate from government offices in Rome. They then passed the phone to a man they said was Crosetto, who asked for money, saying the government could not be seen to be behind the transactions. The defence minister has said they used AI technology to convincingly simulate his voice. ($1 = 0.9615 euros) (Reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by Crispian Balmer)

AI phone scam targets Italian business leaders including Giorgio Armani

Cloned voice of defence minister, Guido Crosetto, used in some calls asking for money to free kidnapped journalists Some of Italy's best-known business leaders, including the fashion designer Giorgio Armani and the Prada chair, Patrizio Bertelli, have been targeted by an artificial intelligence-based scam that involved the mimicking of the defence minister's voice in telephone calls claiming to seek help to free Italian journalists kidnapped in the Middle East. Prosecutors in Milan have received four legal complaints, including from Massimo Moratti, the former owner of Inter Milan, and a member of the Beretta family, the world's oldest producer of firearms. The defence minister, Guido Crosetto, on Monday said he would submit a legal complaint after his voice was cloned and used in at least one of the calls. At least one of the targets is known to have fallen for the scam and was duped into making two transfers totalling €1m to an account in Hong Kong after falsely believing they would be reimbursed by the Bank of Italy. Crosetto revealed the scam in a social media post after receiving a call last week from a well-known entrepreneur who had transferred a large sum of money to an account after what he was convinced was a conversation with the minister. Then two more business people contacted him. He said he chose to make the case public "so that no one runs the risk of falling into the trap". Others were targeted by people claiming to be Crosetto's staff, with the calls made to appear as though they were coming from the defence ministry in Rome. As of Monday, the legal complaints submitted include one from a member of the Aleotti family, which heads the Menarini pharmaceutical firm, and one from a member of the family that owns the Esselunga supermarket chain. A complaint is also expected to be submitted by Giorgio Armani, whose staff were contacted by the scammers, according to reports in the Italian press. The first person to file a legal complaint was Moratti, the former football boss and chair of Saras Group, an multinational energy company. "It all seemed real, they were good, it could happen to anyone," he told La Repubblica. Lucia Aleotti, a Menarini board member, said the company was saved from the scam by a savvy personal assistant called Chiara. "We receive suspicious phone calls all the time," she told Corriere della Sera. "Once they tried to sell us a Caravaggio and even a Leonardo. This was certainly not the most difficult scam for our assistant, who is alert and attentive, to recognise." Aleotti said the caller had presented himself as a "Dr Giovanni Montalbano", who claimed to be from the defence ministry and wanted to urgently speak to the company bosses regarding a national security matter. "The self-styled Montalbano insisted, saying that the minister was at the Nato offices. He left a foreign number to call him back on the same day. The phone call immediately made Chiara suspicious." Others targeted by the elaborate scam include the owner of Tod's, Diego Della Valle, and the executive vice chair of Pirelli, Marco Tronchetti Provera. "They are professional scammers who clearly have both the technology and ability to identify targets," Crosetto told a TV show on Sunday. "In this case, they identified major Italian entrepreneurs, people who, at the request of a minister, would perhaps be ready to make a bank transfer because of their love of Italy." The case comes amid a rise in Italy of telephone scams using voices cloned by artificial intelligence. An elderly woman was last week defrauded of €30,000 after receiving a call from someone she believed to be her daughter, who told her that her husband had injured a mother and her child in a car accident and immediately needed the money to pay a lawyer.

Italian billionaires fall victim to AI-driven scam mimicking defense minister's voice - VnExpress International

Several Italian billionaires have been targeted by scammers using artificial intelligence to imitate the voice of Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto, which reportedly asked for donations in the millions of euros. High-profile figures, including Prada Chair Patrizio Bertelli, former Inter Milan owner Massimo Moratti and Tod's owner Diego Della Valle, were among those contacted, the Financial Times reported. According to an investigation, at least one person transferred €1 million ($1.03 million) to overseas bank accounts. Three businesspeople have filed official complaints with the Milan prosecutor's office. Italian authorities discovered that multiple calls were made by voices posing as members of Crosetto's staff, and in some instances, even imitating Crosetto himself. A defense ministry official said the scammers claimed the money was needed to pay ransom for "Italian journalists kidnapped around the world". In a social media post last week, Crosetto warned of a "serious ongoing scam" after several entrepreneurs contacted him. He noted that the perpetrators appear to be experienced professionals who have the resources and skills to target major Italian business figures, according to The Guardian.

Italian tycoons targeted by fake defence minister in suspected AI scam

Italy's business elite has been roiled by a scam that used an artificial intelligence-generated voice mimicking Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto to ask tycoons to wire millions to overseas bank accounts to help pay ransoms to free Italian journalists kidnapped overseas. The scam targeted some of Italy's most powerful business barons, including Pirelli chair Marco Tronchetti Provera, fashion designer Giorgio Armani, Prada co-founder Patrizio Bertelli, Tod's owner Diego Della Valle, former Inter Milan owner Massimo Moratti and members of the billionaire Beretta and Menarini families, a person with knowledge of the investigation said. While many were immediately suspicious, at least one was persuaded to transfer €1mn to overseas bank accounts, after being falsely reassured that he would be reimbursed by the Bank of Italy later for the payment. So far, three Milanese businesspeople have filed formal complaints to the city's prosecutor's office, including one who fell victim to the scam. Authorities familiar with the case say the fraud involved multiple rounds of calls from people posing as Crosetto's staff and the apparent use of AI to convincingly simulate Crosetto's voice. Targets were told that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government needed their help to rescue Italian journalists kidnapped in the Middle East. "The voice of the minister was reproduced," a defence ministry official said. "It was asking for money to pay ransom for Italian journalists kidnapped in the world. The fake Crosetto said, 'I cannot pay with ministry money, but you will get the money back from the Bank of Italy'. It was a hoax. It was not true." Investigators said the calls appeared to come from telephone numbers belonging to the defence minister's staff -- which they believed had been cloned. The scammers moved just weeks after Meloni's government negotiated a high-profile hostage swap in which a young Italian journalist, Cecilia Sala, was freed from Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, in exchange for Rome returning an Iranian engineer wanted in the US for a scheme that provided sophisticated US drone technology to Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Crosetto first sounded the alarm of "a serious ongoing scam" in a social media post last week, saying he wanted to raise public awareness so that "no one runs the risk of falling into the trap". The minister said he first discovered the fraud after being contacted by a prominent entrepreneur whom he had not previously met and who had transferred a large sum to a bank account detailed by a fake "General Giovanni Montalbano" after speaking to someone that the businessman was convinced was Crosetto himself. Crosetto said he later received calls from several other top entrepreneurs that had been contacted by people purporting to be members of his staff trying to organise the rescue of Italian journalists in the Middle East. The Bank of Italy on Friday warned that fraudsters were improperly using its name and logo to promise that the central bank would reimburse money that wealthy entrepreneurs invested as contributions to the fake rescue scheme. "Banca d'Italia is in no way related to any of these requests," the statement said, as it warned people not to respond and report such overtures to relevant authorities. Italy's business elite are not the first to be targeted by scams preying on wealthy individuals eager to do discreet favours for a government seeking to rescue hostages. A decade ago in France, more than 150 corporate chiefs, heads of state, ambassadors and religious leaders were contacted in an audacious scam when a man claiming to be then French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian requested millions of euros for top-secret government operations, including freeing French journalists held hostage in Syria. Though most sensed something awry, the scammers managed to collect $85mn, including nearly $20mn from the late Aga Khan, leader of the world's Ismaili Muslims. The ringleader Gilbert Chikli, a Franco-Israeli, was convicted on multiple counts of fraud in 2020 and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Scammers clone Italian minister's voice with AI in ransom scheme

Entrepreneurs in Italy were targeted by scammers posing as Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, asking for money to free kidnapped journalists. A scam used an artificial intelligence-generated voice impersonating Italy's Defence Minister Guido Crosetto to ask some of the nation's top tycoons to wire money overseas. Scammers targeted fashion designer Giorgio Armani, former Inter Milan owner Massimo Moratti, Prada co-founder Patrizio Bertelli, and members of the billionaire Beretta and Menarini families, among several others, according to reports in Italian media. The scam involved phone calls from people posing as Crosetto and his staff. The targets were asked to transfer a sum of around €1 million to a Hong Kong-based bank account, which they were told was needed to free kidnapped Italian journalists in the Middle East. Writing on X last week, Crosetto gave details about what he called a "serious scam" and "an absurd affair". The minister said he received a call on Tuesday from a friend -- "a big businessman" -- asking why Crosetto's secretary had phoned to ask for his mobile number. Crosetto said he told him that it was absurd and impossible, but that he had checked to be sure and that his staff confirmed that no one had called the businessman. Crosetto said he was then contacted by an entrepreneur whom he did not know and who had wired a large sum to a bank account given by a fake "General Giovanni Montalbano" after speaking to someone that the businessman thought was Crosetto. The minister said he informed the businessman that it was a scam before alerting the authorities, who went to the individual's house to take details and register a complaint. Crosetto said it had then happened several more times in the following days. "I prefer to make the facts public so that no one runs the risk of falling into the trap," he wrote on X. Authorities in Italy are now investigating the matter and going through the list of targets. It is unclear whether Crosetto's voice was a pre-recorded message or a filter created with artificial intelligence that allowed the scammers to modify his voice in real time. The scam came shortly after the government of Giorgia Meloni secured the release of Cecilia Sala, the Italian journalist who was held for about a month in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison before being freed in mid-January. Of those targeted by the scammers, Moratti has already filed a complaint, as have the Aleotti and Beretta families, according to Italian media. "I'd rather not say any more, let's see how the investigation goes on," Moratti told La Repubblica. "At the moment I prefer to stay calm. I have filed a complaint, of course." Asked whether he had paid €1 million to the scammers, the Milan businessman told the newspaper: "It is correct to say I have filed a complaint, let's wait and then I will tell you."

Italian Elite Targeted by Scammers Using AI Voice Impersonation

Scammers used an artificial intelligence voice tool to impersonate Italy's Defense Minister Guido Crosetto and his staff in an attempt to persuade some of the nation's top businessmen to wire money overseas. Prada SpA co-Chief Executive Officer Patrizio Bertelli, fashion designer Giorgio Armani, Pirelli & C. SpA Executive Vice Chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera and billionaire Massimo Moratti, former owner of the Inter Milan football club, were among those targeted, according to reports by Italian newspapers La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera and others.