DeepfakeHigh
Fraudsters Allegedly Use AI-Generated Voice of Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto to Scam Business Leaders
- Occurred
- Feb 4, 2025
- Published
- Apr 22, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
In February 2025, scammers allegedly used AI voice cloning to impersonate Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, calling top business leaders and reportedly claiming to need funds to free kidnapped journalists. Massimo Moratti was allegedly the only confirmed victim to send nearly €1M, wiring it to accounts in the Netherlands and Hong Kong before realizing the fraud. The scam involved spoofed government numbers, deepfake audio, and international money laundering networks. Police reportedly froze the funds.
Developers
- Deepfake technology developers
- Synthetic audio generation technology developers
Deployers
- Unknown scammers posing as Guido Crosetto
- Scammers
Harmed parties
- Patrizio Bertelli
- Massimo Moratti
- Marco Tronchetti Provera
- Italian business leaders
- Guido Crosetto
- Giorgio Armani
- EssilorLuxottica
- Esselunga
- Del Vecchio family
- Caprotti family
- Caltagirone family
- Beretta family
- Aleotti family
Tags
- Deepfake scam
- Voice cloning fraud
- Financial fraud
- Government impersonation scam
- Social engineering
- Italy
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: AI voice cloning used for fraud causing significant financial loss, fitting deepfake category with high severity due to monetary harm.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8