A cloned voice helped take €95 million from a private bank
A fake text from the CEO, then a call from a lawyer whose voice was generated by AI. The same play works on a five-person office, and three rules stop it.
Reuters reported on September 25 that fraudsters took €95 million (about $108 million) from Fideuram, the private banking arm of Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo. The tools were a text message and a cloned voice.
What happened
- In February, Fideuram’s then-chairman got a WhatsApp message that appeared to come from Intesa Sanpaolo’s CEO, asking for urgent help with an overseas transaction.
- A follow-up call from what seemed to be a partner at a law firm confirmed the request. According to Reuters’ sources, the callers used AI to replicate the lawyer’s voice.
- The money went mainly to accounts in China and Hong Kong. About €53 million has been recovered; about €36 million is still missing, some of it converted to cryptocurrency.
- Milan prosecutors are investigating a foreign national living outside Europe. The bank declined to comment.
What it means for you
The same play works on a five-person office: a text from “the owner” to the bookkeeper, then a call from “the vendor” to confirm new bank details. Three rules stop almost all of it:
- Any request to pay someone new, or to change bank details, gets confirmed by calling back a number you already had. Never the number in the message.
- Payments over a set amount need a second person to approve.
- Agree on a code word with your bookkeeper and office manager for urgent money requests.
Our take
You can’t train your ear to catch a good voice clone, so the fix is not better hearing, it is process. When we build agents that touch payments for a client, they never move money on a message alone, and a person approves anything new.
Sources
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