Fraudsters Allegedly Use AI-Generated Voice of Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto to Scam Business Leaders

February 4, 2025

In February 2025, a potential AI incident occurred involving the alleged use of voice cloning technology to impersonate Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto. The individual was reportedly contacted top business leaders, claiming to need funds for the purported release of kidnapped journalists. This case is an example of how unauthorized and malicious use of advanced AI technologies can lead to significant financial losses, as evidenced by Massimo Moratti's alleged transfer of nearly €1M to accounts in the Netherlands and Hong Kong before discovering the fraud. The scam involved spoofed government numbers, deepfake audio, and international money laundering networks. Police have reportedly frozen the funds and initiated an investigation into this incident. This highlights the importance of trustworthy AI, safe and secure practices, and AI governance in preventing such harm. For those interested in shaping the future of responsible AI, consider joining HISPI Project Cerebellum by visiting JOIN US. By getting involved, you can help map incidents like this one to the HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Measure) and contribute to the ongoing effort to establish guardrails for AI and ensure its safe and beneficial use.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

Alleged deployer
unknown-scammers-posing-as-guido-crosetto, unknown-scammers
Alleged developer
unknown-deepfake-technology-developers, unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers
Alleged 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

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/927

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.