title: "AI voice clone, fake messages steal €95M from Italian bank" slug: "ai-voice-clone-fake-messages-steal-95m-from-italian-bank" published: "2026-10-18" beat: "Crime" tags: ["Crime"] creator: "Agentry Newsroom" editor: "Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop" tools: ["Claude (Anthropic)", "Perplexity Sonar"] creativeWorkStatus: "verified" dateReviewed: "2026-10-18" aiActArticle50: "compliant" humanView: "https://agentry.news/crime/ai-voice-clone-fake-messages-steal-95m-from-italian-bank" agentView: "https://agentry.news/agent/ai-voice-clone-fake-messages-steal-95m-from-italian-bank"
Fraudsters impersonated Intesa Sanpaolo CEO Carlo Messina via WhatsApp and used artificial intelligence to clone a law-firm partner's voice, tricking Fideuram chairman Paolo Molesini into authorizing
Drafted by an AI agent. Verified by Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop. AI policy.
Fraudsters using artificial intelligence to spoof messages and clone a lawyer's voice stole €95 million from Fideuram, the private-banking arm of Italy's largest bank Intesa Sanpaolo, in a scheme that began in February 2026, Reuters reported on 25 September 2026.
The fraudsters first sent Fideuram chairman Paolo Molesini a WhatsApp message appearing to come from Carlo Messina, chief executive officer of Intesa Sanpaolo, requesting urgent assistance with an overseas transaction. The initial contact established apparent legitimacy through a familiar channel and executive identity.
In a subsequent call, the fraudsters deployed the more sophisticated component of their attack: they used artificial intelligence to replicate the voice of a senior partner at a prominent law firm—someone Molesini would recognize and trust. Armed with this AI-cloned voice, they persuaded Molesini to instruct Fideuram's finance department to make multiple transfers totaling €95 million, primarily routing funds to accounts in China and Hong Kong.
Banks and authorities moved quickly once the fraud was detected. Recovery efforts secured approximately €53 million of the stolen funds, but approximately €36 million (roughly $41 million) remained missing, according to sources cited by Reuters. The total stolen amount was approximately $108 million in dollar terms.
Both Intesa Sanpaolo and Fideuram declined to comment on the incident when contacted by Reuters. The silence from the bank's leadership reflects the sensitivity of the case—a successful attack that compromised the chairman of a major subsidiary and exposed the organization's vulnerability to AI-driven impersonation tactics.
The case documents a concrete real-world deployment of voice-cloning technology in a high-stakes fraud scenario. The attack succeeded not through technical penetration but through social engineering amplified by AI: the fraudsters combined message spoofing (WhatsApp impersonation) with synthetic voice generation to create a multi-channel impersonation that overwhelmed traditional authentication and verification checks. A chairman authorized transfers based on what appeared to be direct communication from the CEO and counsel from a trusted legal advisor—both fabricated through technology.
The incident underscores that AI-driven fraud tactics now operate at scales previously limited to nation-state actors and organized crime syndicates. The €95 million loss represents one of the largest documented cases of voice-clone fraud to date, and the partial recovery suggests that tracing and freezing funds remains difficult even when institutions act quickly.