The voice sounded familiar. That was the problem.
An Italian bank sent millions abroad; a grandmother in China handed cash to a stranger. In both cases, scammers used AI to imitate a familiar voice—and made their own story look independently confirmed.
Published
The WhatsApp message came first. It appeared to be from the CEO of Italy's biggest bank. Then came a caller whose voice sounded like that of a lawyer Paolo Molesini knew. Documents and payment instructions followed for an urgent, confidential transaction. In February 2026, staff at Fideuram sent about €95 million to accounts abroad. Molesini was the bank's chairman at the time.
The message was fake. According to Corriere della Sera and ANSA, the scammers had used AI to imitate the lawyer's voice. They presented the WhatsApp message as a communication from Intesa Sanpaolo CEO Carlo Messina.
The voice was only one part of the staging. The supposed lawyer provided the documents and payment details. ANSA reports that Fideuram's head of treasury and payments received another call. This caller posed not as Messina but as Fideuram's own CEO, telling him to expect an urgent instruction from Molesini. The report does not say whether that voice was imitated too.
The bank and investigators stopped or recovered a substantial share of the money. Published estimates of how much remains missing differ: Corriere and Reuters report about €36 million; ANSA, citing case documents, gives €39.5 million. The investigation is ongoing, so there is no final loss figure. Reuters says Intesa Sanpaolo and Fideuram declined to comment.
A grandson's voice in Huangshi
On April 28, 2025, the phone rang at Ms. Ding's home in Huangshi, China. The voice sounded like her grandson's. He said he had injured a classmate and needed money to settle the matter. When a man arrived to collect the cash, he placed another call to the supposed grandson. Ding heard the familiar voice again and handed over 20,000 yuan. According to People's Daily, she discovered the fraud when her grandson came home that evening.
Two other older people were defrauded in the same way. The three handed over 60,000 yuan in total. The Supreme People's Court of China explains what happened during the calls: the collector phoned an accomplice, who used AI to imitate the victims' relatives. A court convicted the collector of fraud. The published case summary says he later repaid the victims in full.
What sounded like confirmation
The second call at Ding's home looked like a check on the first, but the man collecting the cash had arranged it himself. At Fideuram, the supposed lawyer, his documents, and the separate call to the head of treasury and payments all seemed to support the message attributed to Messina. Those signals came from the scammers' staging too.
A familiar voice can signal recognition without establishing who is on the phone. An official-looking document may create the same impression while coming from the person asking for the money. In both cases, the details fit together because the scammers had supplied them. Several matching details are still not independent confirmation.
An independent check starts outside the conversation: end the call and make contact yourself. The US Federal Trade Commission recommends calling a relative at a number you already know or reaching a company through an official channel you chose independently. The question is not how many details fit. It is whether any confirmation came through a channel the other side did not control.