A 38-year-old priest with amputated legs, accompanied by an elderly woman and a 14-year-old altar boy, went viral on social media asking for donations via Pix to buy urgent prosthetics. The story was shared thousands of times and attracted the attention of many believers willing to help. However, it is a scam: none of the characters exist, as they were entirely created with artificial intelligence to defraud people and raise money.
The fraud began to be exposed in Valinhos, in the interior of São Paulo, when Reginaldo Jesus Flor, 80 years old, watched the video of the supposed "Father Mateus" and became suspicious of the content. Accustomed to the structure of the Catholic Church, he found both the AI-generated images and the money request strange, and decided to seek his son to analyze the material.
Reginaldo stated that if a priest really had such a serious situation, the diocese would certainly provide all the necessary assistance to the priest, making a private donation request suspicious. The police are investigating the case to identify those responsible for the scam that used deepfakes and artificial intelligence tools to create fictional characters and exploit people's faith.
