Milan: The Italian authorities have managed to appear nearly 1 million euros (£ 870,000) after a eminent businessman was the victim of a sophisticated scam involving artificial intelligence.
The officials revealed on Wednesday that the funds, which were transferred to a foreign bank account, were part of a program where fraudsters used AI to pretend to be the Italian Minister of Defense, Guido Crosetto.
The fraudsters used AI to imitate the minister’s voice, making calls which claimed to request urgent financial aid for the release of Italian journalists kidnapped in the Middle East.
Some of the most important commercial figures in Italy, including the fashion designer Giorgio Armani and the co-founder of Prada, Patrizio Bertelli, were targeted, said Milan prosecutors earlier this week. However, only Massimo Moratti, the former owner of the Inter Milan football club, would have sent the funded funds.
The officials said they thought it would be difficult to recover the missing funds, but on Wednesday they revealed that the money had been traced in the Netherlands.
“I am very happy that the money fraudulently taken to an entrepreneur, using my voice and my falsified name, was traced to a Dutch and completely frozen account,” said Crosetto on X. “Excellent work of magistrates and forces of police. “
There was no immediate commentary by Moratti, who had transferred two payments totaling nearly a million euros, under the wrong conviction that he would be reimbursed by the Bank of Italy, said sources familiar with the ‘affair.
Moratti filed a legal complaint last week after realizing that he had been due. “Everything seemed real. They were good. It could happen to anyone,” he told the Repubblica to the Italian this weekend.
The scam involved fraudsters pretending to be responsible for the Ministry of Defense, with calls that seemed to come from the government’s functions in Rome. They then transmitted the phone to a man they said that it was Crosetto, who asked for money, saying that the government could not be seen at the origin of transactions.
The Minister of Defense said he used AI technology to convincingly simulate his voice.
