Italian police freeze cash from AI-voice scam that targeted business leaders

FILE PHOTO: Illustration shows message reading "AI artificial intelligence", keyboard and robot hands

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian police have found and frozen nearly one million euros ($1.04 million) that was wired to a foreign bank account by a leading businessman after he fell victim to an artificial intelligence scam, officials said on Wednesday.

Fraudsters used AI to mimic the voice of Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, making calls that claimed to seek urgent financial assistance for the release of kidnapped Italian journalists in the Middle East.

Some of Italy's most prominent business figures, including fashion designer Giorgio Armani and Prada co-founder Patrizio Bertelli, were targeted, prosecutors in Milan said earlier this week. However, only Massimo Moratti, the former owner of soccer club Inter Milan, was believed to have sent the requested funds.

Officials said they thought it would be hard to retrieve the missing funds, but on Wednesday they revealed the cash had been located to the Netherlands.

"I'm very pleased that the money fraudulently taken from an entrepreneur, using my falsified voice and name, has been traced to a Dutch account and completely frozen," Crosetto said on X. "Excellent work by the magistrates and the police forces."

There was no immediate comment from Moratti, who had transferred two payments totalling almost one million euros, under the mistaken belief that he would be reimbursed by the Bank of Italy, sources familiar with the case have said.

Moratti filed a legal complaint last week after realizing he had been duped. "It all seemed real. They were good. It could happen to anyone," he told Italian daily La Repubblica at the weekend.

The scam involved fraudsters posing as officials from the defence ministry, with calls that appeared to originate from government offices in Rome. They then passed the phone to a man they said was Crosetto, who asked for money, saying the government could not be seen to be behind the transactions.

The defence minister has said they used AI technology to convincingly simulate his voice. ($1 = 0.9615 euros)