A fake message, a cloned voice: €95 million
In February 2026, a WhatsApp message that seemed to come from the group's CEO and an AI-cloned lawyer's voice led Italian private bank Fideuram to send about €95 million abroad within a few hours.
News and articles on voice security.
Real fraud cases carried out with deepfakes and voice cloning, and articles from the Spiron team on voice security.
01News
Real fraud cases carried out with deepfakes and voice cloning: what happened, how it was done, what we can learn.
They called business leaders in a minister’s cloned voice.
In February 2025, fraudsters used AI to imitate the voice of Italy's Defence Minister Guido Crosetto and called some of the country's best-known business leaders. The pretext was freeing Italian journalists kidnapped in the Middle East; one person sent almost €1 million.
The one question that saved Ferrari.
In July 2024, a Ferrari executive received WhatsApp messages that seemed to come from CEO Benedetto Vigna, followed by a call in an imitation of his voice. One simple question from the executive ended the call.
The CEO in the meeting was not real.
In May 2024, fraudsters tried to impersonate Mark Read, CEO of WPP, the world's biggest advertising group, in a virtual meeting set up with a fake WhatsApp account, a voice clone and YouTube footage. The attempt failed.
Everyone on the video call was fake.
In early 2024, a finance worker at engineering firm Arup in Hong Kong sent HK$200 million (about US$25.6 million) in 15 transactions after a video call he believed was with the company's chief financial officer and colleagues. Everyone on the call was a deepfake.
The boss called, with a German accent.
In March 2019, the CEO of a UK energy firm sent €220,000 to an account in Hungary on the phone instructions of the person he believed was the CEO of the German parent company. The voice had been imitated with AI; it became one of the first publicly reported voice-cloning frauds.
02Contact
Catch the cloned voice before the call ends.
Try SynVoi free with your own recordings, or request access for your organisation.
- info@spiron.io
- Address
- İTÜ ARI Teknokent 2, Block B
Sarıyer / İstanbul, Türkiye - linkedin.com/company/spirontech