A group of scammers impersonated D. João Lavrador, bishop of Viana do Castelo, and sent messages to approximately 100 priests from the Diocese of Viana, on Wednesday, requesting help under the pretext of urgent matters. The messages contained different texts but included requests for bank transfers or references to matters related to the parishes.
The recipients found the content strange and contacted the bishop to confirm authenticity. Realizing it was not an isolated case, the Diocese issued a warning on social media about what had happened. According to Father João Basto, from the Communications Office, no priest has been harmed so far.
The Diocese believes there was no cyberattack on its systems, but that someone collected the priests' contacts from the Catholic Yearbook, where this information is public. The Diocese asked anyone who receives messages in the bishop's name not to reply, not to open links or attachments, and not to provide personal or banking data.
This is not the first time someone has attempted to impersonate D. João Lavrador. In April of this year, the Diocese had already warned about the existence of a fake profile of the bishop on Facebook.
