Artificial intelligence has made scams so elaborate that it can be difficult to tell what’s real and what’s not. An unnamed Ferrari executive was recently targeted by a scammer who made a pretty convincing impersonation of company CEO Benedetto Vigna until he was outsmarted.
The scammer contacted the Ferrari exec via WhatsApp posing as Vigna, though the phone number and the profile picture didn’t match the ones that the CEO normally uses. The message said “Hey, did you hear about the big acquisition we’re planning? I could need your help,” according to The Drive. The executive seemingly replied, and the conversation continued until the scammer called his would-be victim.
Stunningly, the person on the other end of the line reportedly sounded exactly like Vigna, down to his accent from southern Italy. It sounds like the scammer used an artificial intelligence-powered software to replicate the CEO’s voice. Something still sounded off to the executive so he asked the alleged Vigna a simple question: “what book did you recently recommend that I read?” The scammer had no clue — AI doesn’t do that yet — and hung up. If you’re wondering, the correct answer was “Decalogue of Complexity: Acting, Learning, and Adapting in the Incessant Becoming of the World,” which was written by Italian author Alberto Felice de Toni and published earlier in 2024.
Ferrari opened an internal investigation into the phone call and discovered that the scammer wanted to talk about “a China-related deal” requiring a currency-hedge transaction, according to The Drive. The person wanted money, but there’s no word yet on who was behind the scam. He would have gotten away with it, too, but it wasn’t a group of meddling kids and a dog traveling in a colorful van that stopped him; it’s quick, acute thinking on the exec’s part.
Now you know how to unmask a scammer — and the book that Ferrari’s CEO has on his nightstand.
