An elderly priest who barely leaves his residence is the latest local Jesuit to be targeted in a scam involving spam messages sent from his e-mail account ­saying he urgently needs money as he has lost his wallet abroad.

One e-mail seen by The Sunday Times, sent from the e-mail address of the local Jesuit, said he was in Spain for a “program” and he had misplaced his wallet containing his money and credit card. He asked for a loan of €2,450 as his hotel was holding his passport and possessions until he made a payment.

Tugging on the heartstrings, the e-mail states: “I am so confused right now. Please let me know immediately”. It is signed using the Jesuit’s name.

In reality, the Jesuit in question is 86 years old and very rarely leaves his residence in Naxxar, never mind visit Spain.

Jesuit Provincial Fr Paul Pace SJ confirmed the e-mail address used belongs to the 86-year-old Maltese Jesuit, but the elderly priest had definitely not been to Spain or sent the message himself.

Fr Pace said similar spam e-mails have been sent from the Yahoo e-mail accounts of around four local Jesuits, “but it’s hard to say if the Jesuits are being targeted specifically or whether it’s totally random and everyone is a target.”

Last May, The Sunday Times reported on another local priest whose e-mail address had been hacked and messages sent to his contacts saying he had been mugged in Nigeria and urgently needed €4,500.

The priest, who wished to remain anonymous, described the experience as “traumatic” and said one of his friends even tried to send the money the e-mail asked for.

The editor of Tech Sunday, Stanley Borg said it was possible that Jesuits’ e-mail accounts had been purposely targeted and hacked by spammers who believed recipients would be more likely to trust and want to help a priest in trouble, particularly if they knew him.

However, this was just one scenario. The Jesuits may simply have been random victims of spammers.

After all, spammers are able to buy thousands of e-mail add-resses cheaply and sophisticated spammers can target their spam, which is why people can receive spam from contacts in their address book.

A sophisticated password is one of the most effective safeguards against e-mail hacking, while investing in effecting anti-virus software and updating it constantly should protect against spam trends.