Several pastors of evangelical churches in Spain have been targeted by a scam in the last weeks.

The Federation of Evangelical Religious Entities of Spain (Ferede) has reported cases in the cities of Valladolid, Palencia, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Alicante, Elche and Gandía. The evangelical body issued a warning after one of the pastors contacted them.

The scam consisted of a phone call from a first person pretending to be a pastor in Seville. In the call, the impersonator explained that an church elder (a leader) of his church had died and that he had a son who had left the faith in the past which was living in the same city as the victim. The deceased’s family wanted the son to attend the funeral, the story said, but did not have the money to do so. So the pastors were asked to help with amounts between 250 and 300 euros. A second person then pretended to be the son in questions would physically show up in the church to collect the money.

“All this takes place under pressure and a very calculated story so that the church gives the money before doing the minimum checks that, when they are finally done, reveal the scam”, Ferede told Spanish news website Protestante Digital.

Money to attend a funeral

“At no time did I doubt that this person was someone who had been a 'brother' who had left the church”, says Luis Bermúdez of the Buenas Noticias church (Good News) in Santiago de Compostela, one of the pastors who fell victim to the scam is Luis Bermúdez.

In a conversation with Protestante Digital, Bermúdez recounted what happened. “I received a call from a person pretending to be Manuel Saborido, a pastor from Seville. He explained to me that a member of his local church, an elder (a biblical term to describe a church leader), had just died and that he had a son in Santiago de Compostela. He said that the son was not doing well spiritually and that the family in Seville wanted him to go to the funeral, but that he didn’t have the money for the trip. The man asked me to provide him with the money, between 250 and 300 euros, so that he could travel as soon as possible and get to the funeral”.

He gave me a phone number to call and a person appeared, the supposed son of the deceased. I saw him physically in the doorway of my building. A young guy, between 35 and 40 years old, burly and jovial looking. I had that money in cash”, Bermúdez explains.

“He spoke the typical church language. He told me that he had been ‘away from God’ but that he used to be a church member and had been involved in evangelism, playing music in the worship team. And he addressed me as ‘brother’. At no point I doubted that this person had been a committed Christian […] When he left I told him I would keep his telephone number to meet up on day to take coffee and resume the conversation about God”.

“They know the evangelical jargon perfectly”

The affected pastor in Santiago underlines that it is obvious that the scam comes from people “who know the evangelical jargon perfectly and know all the details of church life”.

Pastor Bermúdez, discovered that he had been scammed after reading a note from another of the pastors of Buenas Noticias Galicia that reached him the day after his meeting with the young man and which warned that scams were being run on pastors in the north of Spain. “It made me suspicious”, he says. Later, he explains, he managed to contact the real pastor Saborido in Seville, who let him know that it all was a scam and that the same thing had happened to other evangelical pastors in the cities of Palencia and Valladolid.

“It’s very sad that people who have been in the church, because they know us well and use the right language, are trying to scam us in our own house. I don’t know how they don’t fear God. It’s all convoluted”, says Bermúdez.

Police reports

The church in Santiago de Compostela filed a complaint with the police. The authorities are tracing the telephone numbers. However, there is little hope of recovering the money. “The scammers knew what they were doing because up to 400 euros is considered petty theft. It is above that amount that we talk about the crime of robbery. That’s why they asked for 300 euros. So, even if they were tried, they probably wouldn’t go to jail”, pastor Bermñudez.

Ferede has reported that the affected church in Palencia has also filed a complaint with the police. On the other hand, the evangelical federation assures that it is following police instructions and that they are gathering information on all the cases of which they are aware in order to add the files and present a collective complaint.