AI-powered scam dupes Italian private bank into risky overseas transfers

In February, Paolo Molesini, chairman of Fideuram - the private-banking division of Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo - was contacted via WhatsApp with a message that seemed to originate from the group’s chief executive, asking for help with a large overseas wire. The deception deepened when a subsequent phone call, produced with artificial-intelligence voice synthesis to sound like a senior partner at a major law firm, affirmed the request’s legality.

Acting on the apparent authority, Molesini instructed the bank’s financial department to dispatch the money to several foreign accounts, including destinations in China and Hong Kong. The bank’s monitoring systems soon flagged the transactions as irregular, prompting alerts to counterpart banks and law-enforcement agencies. Through coordinated international action, a significant share of the transferred amount was reclaimed, but the balance is thought to have vanished into a chain of foreign accounts and been turned into cryptocurrency. Milan prosecutors are now seeking to identify the cyber-criminals behind the AI-driven fraud, with investigations extending beyond the European Union.