Sophisticated fraudsters meticulously orchestrated a staggering heist, exfiltrating approximately €95 million from Fideuram, the esteemed private banking division of Italy’s premier financial institution, Intesa Sanpaolo. According to two confidential sources intimately familiar with the ongoing investigation, the attackers successfully manipulated Paolo Molesini, Fideuram’s Chairman at the time. The perpetrators deceived him into authorizing massive illicit transfers by leveraging a meticulously forged WhatsApp message, seamlessly followed by a telephone call utilizing an artificial intelligence-generated vocal clone. While authorities successfully recovered a substantial portion of the misappropriated funds, approximately €36 million remains conspicuously untraced.
This elaborate deception unfolded precisely in February 2026. The orchestration began when Molesini received a deceptive message meticulously engineered to appear as though it originated directly from Carlo Messina, the Chief Executive Officer of Intesa Sanpaolo. The fraudulent author urgently requested Molesini’s immediate assistance to facilitate a complex, high-stakes international financial transaction exclusively through the Fideuram division.
The Efficacy of AI Voice Cloning in Social Engineering
Following the deceptive text, Molesini received a phone call from an individual adopting the persona of a senior executive at a prominent, prestigious law firm. Sources directly acquainted with the investigation assert that the adversaries weaponized advanced artificial intelligence to flawlessly replicate the genuine attorney’s voice, thereby lending absolute credibility to the previously transmitted instructions. This specific technique of AI voice cloning empowers malicious actors to synthesize audio remarkably indistinguishable from a specific individual’s natural cadence, a method increasingly proliferating within high-level social engineering campaigns.
Molesini, thoroughly convinced of the request’s authenticity, officially instructed his financial department to execute a series of massive wire transfers directed toward various international accounts. The funds predominantly flowed into opaque jurisdictions spanning China and Hong Kong. Fideuram’s internal security apparatus eventually detected the highly anomalous transactional patterns. The institution immediately alerted global banking partners and international law enforcement agencies, subsequently orchestrating the successful retrieval of over half the transferred capital.
Laundering Through Cryptocurrencies and Ongoing Investigations
Tragically, the outstanding 36 million that evaded recovery was rapidly laundered through a labyrinthine network of offshore accounts before being systematically converted into untraceable cryptocurrency. Currently, investigators remain entirely ignorant regarding the ultimate destination of these vanished assets.
Neither Intesa Sanpaolo nor its Fideuram division have offered any official public commentary addressing the specific circumstances of this devastating fraud. According to current intelligence, neither Molesini nor any other senior Fideuram executives are presently considered suspects in this active criminal case. The Milan public prosecutor’s office is vigorously pursuing a foreign national residing outside European jurisdiction, formally suspecting this individual of orchestrating the complex computer fraud.
Molesini abruptly resigned from his position as Chairman of Fideuram in March, merely weeks after authorizing the catastrophic transfers, publicly citing unspecified personal reasons. At the time of his departure, the corporation steadfastly refused to link his sudden resignation to the unprecedented financial breach.
This chilling incident is not isolated; a conceptually identical scheme previously victimized other high-profile Italian entrepreneurs. In 2025, fraudsters brazenly synthesized the voice of Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto. They subsequently initiated calls to prominent business leaders, urgently soliciting immediate financial transfers under the false pretense of financing the liberation of kidnapped journalists. Massimo Moratti, the former owner of the Inter Milan football club, tragically transferred nearly €1 million based on this deception. However, international authorities later located and successfully froze those specific funds within a Dutch bank account, as detailed in reports regarding the Italian police freezing cash from an AI voice scam.
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