Inside the €39.5M AI Heist at Fideuram

The fraud unfolded over three days in February 2026, beginning with a WhatsApp message sent to then-chairman Paolo Molesini. Posing as Intesa Sanpaolo CEO Carlo Messina, the sender pressured Molesini into a confidential acquisition deal, claiming that any public oversight would trigger intervention from Consob, Italy’s securities regulator. The deception was bolstered by an AI-generated call mimicking a trusted lawyer from A&O Shearman, alongside forged confidentiality agreements bearing Messina’s signature.

While Fideuram’s treasury team executed eleven separate transfers totaling €95 million to accounts in China and Portugal, the bank managed to recover roughly €55 million through swift intervention and international judicial cooperation. However, €39.5 million remains missing. Investigators have traced at least €4 million of these funds through a labyrinthine route spanning Malta, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, eventually landing in a Canadian money-transfer platform and two Bitcoin wallets.

Milanese prosecutors have identified a 48-year-old Israeli citizen as a person of interest linked to these specific accounts, though his true identity remains under verification. While Paolo Molesini resigned his post shortly after the incident, he is not under formal investigation. Authorities are currently navigating a series of similar, albeit separate, fraud cases across Italy, where social engineering and voice cloning have been deployed to target bank managers, signaling a growing vulnerability in executive-level financial protocols.