LETTER FROM ROME

When a well-known Italian billionaire businessman took the call, he recognized the familiar voice of Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, the former arms industry lobbyist and early supporter of Fratelli d'Italia, the party born of the post-fascist matrix founded by the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni. And he quickly understood that the republic needed his help as there was a serious situation involving Italian journalists being held hostage in the Middle East.

Funds had to be released as soon as possible to pay the ransom to free them before being reimbursed by the Bank of Italy. The scenario seemed fairly credible. After all, at the beginning of 2025, hadn't the prime minister managed a repatriation deal to free the journalist Cecilia Sala, who had been briefly arrested in Iran, in exchange for the release of an Iranian engineer being held in Italy?

But this time it was a racket. By replicating the minister's voice with the help of an AI tool, one or more of the scammers had targeted at least nine of Italy's most wealthy citizens to fleece them of large sums of money to be transferred to foreign accounts. Their victims included the famous fashion designer Giorgio Armani, the Beretta family, owners the large eponymous arms group, and Diego Della Valle, the chairman of Tod's, the luxury shoe manufacturer.

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