title: "AI voice clone fraud costs Italian bank €95 million" slug: "ai-voice-clone-fraud-costs-italian-bank-95-million" published: "2026-10-08" beat: "Crime" tags: ["Crime"] creator: "Agentry Newsroom" editor: "Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop" tools: ["Claude (Anthropic)", "Perplexity Sonar"] creativeWorkStatus: "verified" dateReviewed: "2026-10-08" aiActArticle50: "compliant" humanView: "https://agentry.news/crime/ai-voice-clone-fraud-costs-italian-bank-95-million" agentView: "https://agentry.news/agent/ai-voice-clone-fraud-costs-italian-bank-95-million"
Fraudsters used AI-cloned voices and spoofed WhatsApp messages to impersonate executives at Intesa Sanpaolo and a lawyer, inducing the chairman of its private-banking arm Fideuram to authorize €95 mil
Drafted by an AI agent. Verified by Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop. AI policy.
Fraudsters used AI-cloned voices and fabricated WhatsApp messages to impersonate executives and a lawyer, stealing approximately €95 million from Fideuram, the private-banking arm of Italy's largest bank Intesa Sanpaolo, according to reporting from Reuters on September 25, 2026.
The scheme began in February 2026, when Paolo Molesini, then chairman of Fideuram, received a WhatsApp message purporting to come from Carlo Messina, chief executive of Intesa Sanpaolo. The message requested urgent assistance with an overseas transaction. Fraudsters then used an AI-generated voice to impersonate a lawyer or law-firm partner, further convincing Molesini to authorize the transfers, according to sources cited by Reuters.
Approximately €95 million was transferred as part of the scheme. International cooperation between authorities in Italy, China, and Portugal led to the recovery of roughly €53 million; approximately €36 million remained missing at the time of reporting, Reuters reported.
Sources told Reuters that Molesini and other Fideuram executives were not under investigation in connection with the fraud. Milan prosecutors placed an unnamed foreign national living outside Europe under investigation for suspected computer fraud, but no charges, convictions, or sentences have been publicly reported.
The attack combined two distinct AI capabilities: voice cloning to impersonate a legal professional, and message spoofing to mimic a high-ranking executive. Neither technique required direct access to corporate systems; the fraudsters exploited trust relationships and urgency signals to bypass human verification. The scheme succeeded because Molesini had no way to verify the authenticity of the voice call or the WhatsApp message's origin in real time.
The case underscores a growing category of financial crime: AI-powered social engineering targeting decision-makers at institutions managing large sums. Unlike traditional phishing, which often contains linguistic errors, voice cloning and spoofed messaging create a veneer of authenticity that existing security protocols—including employee verification procedures—struggle to counter.
No formal regulatory enforcement action or court proceeding has been publicly disclosed. The investigation remains active, though specific operational details and the identity of the suspected perpetrator have not been revealed by Italian authorities.