A former Ukrainian Defense Ministry official has been indicted and sent to trial for organizing the procurement of 300,000 pairs of tactical gloves valued at approximately $5.2 million that failed to meet the contracted specifications. They could not perform their basic function of protecting soldiers' hands in combat, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced.
300,000 pairs of combat gloves delivered to Ukrainian troops on the frontline that, expert analysis later showed, used ordinary rubber instead of the thermoplastic rubber required by technical specifications and failed cut- and puncture-resistance tests.
The gloves were intended for use in assault operations, casualty evacuation, and work under fire, which are the exact combat environments where hand protection matters most.
According to the investigation, the official organized the procurement after manipulating both the contract documentation and the technical specifications. Investigators found that the requirement for mandatory compliance with Defense Ministry product standards was removed from the procurement documentation. The product's technical characteristics were altered.
Advance payments were approved without proper justification. The combined effect of the acts created the procurement conditions under which the manufacturer substituted cheaper materials and delivered a product that did not meet the original technical requirements.
The former Defense Ministry official was notified of suspicion in August 2025. Following the completion of the SBU's pre-trial investigation, the indictment has now been transferred to the court.
The case is one of multiple Ukrainian defense-procurement fraud prosecutions that have progressed through the system since 2024, when Ukrainian authorities began aggressive prosecutions of procurement officials over the delivery of substandard military equipment to frontline troops.
Earlier, a medic in a Ukrainian mechanized battalion based in Donetsk Oblast was charged with stealing 16 FPV drones manufactured by Ukrainian defense-tech company General Cherry. He also tried to sell these drones, worth approximately $12,600, for $2,370, the Eastern Region Specialized Defense Prosecutor's Office said.
mikemacmarketing, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
AI has become a force multiplier for scammers. It enables them to accomplish in seconds what once took hours—at massive scale and with startling accuracy. Fraudsters have moved from a cottage-industry model to full-scale industrial operations.
Artificial intelligence has pushed scams to an unprecedented level, both in quality and quantity. Here is an overview of the most significant developments.
AI-enabled scams have increased by 1,210%, far outpacing the growth of traditional fraud (195%). Global losses tied to AI-assisted scams are estimated at $14.3 billion, and Deloitte projects that losses in the United States will rise from $12.3 billion in 2023 to $40 billion by 2027.
In France specifically, caller ID spoofing surged by 517% in 2025, and more than 500,000 victims have already received support after falling prey to AI-based scams such as voice cloning and fake financial advisers.
Generative AI is transforming phishing by creating highly personalized messages. Cybercriminals use personal data available on social media to craft emails tailored precisely to each victim.
Voice-cloning technology now requires as little as three seconds of audio to reproduce a person’s voice with remarkable realism. By mimicking the voice or appearance of executives and public officials, criminals can deceive employees into authorizing fraudulent wire transfers—as demonstrated by the $26 million stolen in Hong Kong through a deepfake scheme.
AI-powered romance scams use large language models to sustain emotionally convincing conversations at scale. These bots can maintain dozens of simultaneous “relationships,” adapting their tone and personality to each target.
In January 2025, authorities dismantled a large-scale scam in which fraudsters used AI avatars to conduct fake job interviews, collecting sensitive personal information and confidential documents. Recruiting platforms report that identity-theft attempts involving AI-generated job postings have increased fivefold.
Check Point’s “Truman Show” operation uncovered a scheme involving 90 AI-generated “experts” deployed in controlled messaging groups to persuade victims to invest in fraudulent crypto platforms. According to Chainalysis, cryptocurrency scams caused $14 billion in losses in 2025, and AI-driven scams proved 4.5 times more profitable than conventional fraud.
AI-based scams remove many of the human limitations that once made social engineering easier to spot and slower to execute. There are no spelling mistakes, no foreign accents, and no obvious visual inconsistencies. People correctly identify AI-generated voices only about 60% of the time.
A few essential precautions:
L’article Scams Fueled by AI est apparu en premier sur FrenchDailyNews.
Federica Mogherini (Wikipédia)
Former EU Foreign Service Chief arrested
By Robert Harneis
52 year old Federica Mogherini, currently Director of the College of Europe and former EU Foreign Affairs High Representative, was arrested on Tuesday in connection with a fraud investigation. Mogherini was detained along with two other defendants – a manager at the College and a leading Italian diplomat, Stefano Sannino, a leading member of the EU diplomatic Corps, the European External Action Service, (EEAS). The EEAS has 140 delegations around the world, otherwise known as embassies.
The offices of the EEAS were searched, as were a number of private houses. According to the Belgian newspaper Soir, the investigation is jointly run by a ‘juge d’instruction’ in West Flanders Region, combined with the independent European prosecuting service the EPPO. The Belgian police carried out the searches and arrests. Prior to the police operations, the EPPO asked for the lifting of the diplomatic immunity of the suspects, which was granted.
According to the specialist website Euractiv, an independent EU information service partly funded by the EU, the investigation relates to an EU-funded diplomatic training program at the College of Europe, situated in Bruges, Belgium. The details of the charges are currently unclear but they are understood to concern contracts entered into in the course of the considerable expansion of the College of Europe. A new branch was opened in Tirana, Bulgaria, in 2024. The investigations go back to 2021-2022 and concern alleged “fraud in the awarding of public contracts, corruption, conflicts of interest breach of confidence’’ as well as possible “favoritism” in the awarding of places on College organized diplomatic courses.
Federica Mogherini was among the candidates for the post of NATO Secretary General, to replace Jens Stoltenberg. Her career was promoted by former very pro EU Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who, according to Brussels insiders, now claims Mogherini has ‘disappointed’ him.
It should be noted that the matters under investigation relate to a period before Kaja Kallas took over as European High Representative. Never the less Kallas will be concerned that the present sensational scandal has exploded now, as she tries to confirm the world diplomatic presence of the EU. 48 year old Kallas, like Mogherini has so far had a brilliant politico diplomatic career. She was Estonian Prime Minister 2021-2024 and is an unrelenting Russophobe. Her father, Sim Kallas, was also Prime Minister of Estonia 2002-2003, as well as an EU Commissioner 2004-2014. Before the break-up of the Soviet Union Sim Kallas was a leading member of the Estonian Soviet Communist Party, banking expert and executive in Estonia.
It is not unreasonable to ask why this dramatic and rare judicial event has happened and why now? A source close to the investigation commented that, ‘as in Kiev, the arrests indicate an underlying power struggle over policy and may be intended as a warning to Kaja Kallas and even Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen to tone down hostility to Russia, in the light of the current peace moves coming from Washington’.
It is noticeable that the obviously ambitious, US protégé, Finnish President Stubb, who until recently seemed to want to start World War 3 with Moscow, regardless of the negative consequences for the people of Finland, now seems to have turned 180° and is talking about improving border relations.
It is also possible that this is a settling of old scores by the United States going back to the awarding of the World Football Cup to Qatar rather than the US in 2010. At the time an enraged former President Bill Clinton, who was promoting the US case for holding the event, is said to have smashed a hotel mirror, when he heard the bad news.
As recently demonstrated by Presidents Biden and Trump, the US has a history of settling old scores by conducting ‘lawfare’, action in the courts against political enemies. After this act of defiance, a number of football executives found themselves extradited and imprisoned in the US. Mogherini and Sonnini were mentioned during the affair known as Qatargate.
In any event it is reasonable to ask why Mogherini has been singled out for special attention, when Van Der Leyen seems untouchable despite her extraordinary activities during the Covid Pandemic, which involved tens of billions of tax payers’ euros and missing internet messages.
By contrast French Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been pursued with unrelenting ferocity by the EU and French judicial authorities, despite it being difficult to argue that her party’s admittedly irregular activities, cost taxpayer’s any money at all. The argument was essentially about how the money was used not about any loses to the public purse.
Suspects released without charge
Mogherini and the other suspects have now been released and no criminal charges have been made or restrictions imposed. According to Mogherini’s avocat ‘the hearing was lengthy but went very well’.
L’article Political thriller in Brussels est apparu en premier sur FrenchDailyNews.
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