The archbishop of Mérida and Badajoz is asking for money from their parishioners by phone. The only problem is not doing it

Your phone rings, you pick up the call and turn out to be the archbishop of your community. He tells you as a voice that the Church needs donations for religious and social campaigns and you, confident Feligrés, with all the good intention of the world you make a donation because well, it is the archbishop who asks for it. The problem is that it is a lie. On the other side of the phone is not the archbishop, nor is the donation for social purposes. On the other side there is a scammer using a cloned voice through AI. And this, which could sound for science fiction, is not at all. It is just what happened in Mérida and Badajoz. Context. The Archdiocese of Mérida-Badajoz has issued a statement on its website to notify a scam carried out through telephone calls. As detailed by the entity, the scammers were supplanting the voice of the archbishop of Mérida-Badajoz, Mr. José Rodríguez Carballo, to “deceive people requesting donations for religious and social campaigns.” The Archdiocese has taken advantage of the statement to remember that “at no time the archbishop, or any member of the Diocesan curia, makes requests for economic aid by telephone, or through digital or telematic means.” He has also asked for the collaboration of parishioners to report and help stop the scam. How is this possible? Cloning a voice is, even if it seems, something quite simple and relatively cheap. Simply have audio files with good quality and use a platform like Eleven Labs. For the modest price of five euros, anyone can clone a voice and generate about 30 minutes of audio. It is not the only option Not much less or there is no evidence that this tool has been used, but it is one of the most popular. And yes, you can also generate a conversational agent so that you can respond to the victim in real time with the cloned voice. As for the audio files, a simple search on YouTube of the Name of the Archbishop returns us several clips of Mr. José Rodríguez Carballo speaking. There are long -lasting videos, some relatively recent, so it would be easy to obtain several audio hours with which to train AI. A simple youtube search returns dozens of videos of Monsignor D. José Rodríguez Carballo speaking | Image: Xataka The rest is public. Having this, the rest is to pull inventiveness. It would be enough to access the pastoral cards published by the archbishop to see how he writes and the news of the Archdiocese, to his biography on the Archbishopric website and some recent news, put everything in the cheatlele of Chatgpt, ask for a coherent speech, locute him with the voice stolen cloned and the rest is history. Fight against this? Complicated, at least. It is not the first time. Just a few weeks ago the archbishopric of Seville He had to give his brotherhood alarm. The reason: an attempt to scam at the Andalusian level that used voices of some bishops to ask for money for Bizum. Something similar happened in Jaén In 2024. It is the Evolution of the Timo del CEOscam of which we have spent at least four years. How to prevent? Distrustful. If an unknown telephone number calls us and a voice, however realistic, start asking us for money, personal data or anything that does not fit us or strange, it is best to hang and block the phone number. In the closest field, a good idea can be Implement a family password that we can use to demonstrate that we are, indeed, who claim to be. Cover image | Archdiocese of Mérida-Badajoz In Xataka | A church had been missing 600 years off the coast of Germany. Until some researchers decided to find it

In a town in Badajoz they have encountered a strength of 5,000 years ago. And a Roman with a suspicious burial

The Spanish territory is is filling with solar panels. Whether it’s Taking advantage of the roofs of industrial estates or in huge Photovoltaic plants in the middle of the fieldenergy are clear that we must take advantage of the country’s solar potential. What happens is that, from time to time, they run into unforeseen events. Such as, with a huge strength of copper age. Photovoltaic archaeologists. This was precisely what happened in 2021, when Action was inspecting an olive grove to lift the Extremadura I-II-III photovoltaic complex. The plan was to have an installation that, together, provided 125 MW of renewable energy, enough to satisfy the annual consumption of more than 65,000 families. Then, I know They encountered With a wall. Or what should have been a wall 5,000 years ago. Cortijo Lobato. Near the municipality of Almendralejo in which Actiona was carrying out the works, the plant appeared of what, at some point, must have been an imposing fortification. As they tell The countryin the baptized as a Cortijo Lobato site, a fortress composed of three concentric walls, 25 semicircular towers and three grave with four meters wide and two depth was erected. The total area was about 13,000 square meters with a single entrance of less than a meter wide. The most important tower rose on a hill of more than 300 meters above sea level, a strategic point from which to control the surroundings. Around it, adobe walls between 1.3 and 1.5 meters wide that were reinforced with the aforementioned concentric exterior pits and walls. You can see the silhouette of the towers and the walls Undermining morality. César Pérez is the director of the excavations, belonging to the Archaeological Research Team of Tera, and argues that this intricate defensive complex not only had as its objective to be a physical barrier, but to discourage whoever wanted to cross it. The problem is that, although it was raised at some point 5,000 or 4,800 years ago, it seems that, 400 years, then it was destroyed. The culprit: a fire. And it is estimated that it was caused, because the wooden doors would be strategically placed outside any flammable material. In addition, numerous arrow points have been found, suggesting that, either it was an enemy attack, or an act of internal rebellion. The result was the same: the destruction of the complex. Three years of work. At the time of discovery, the archeology team focused on protecting the surroundings of Cortijo Lobato. Cease commented A few months ago, during the first three years, “it has been possible to delimit, conserve and it is now when it is being known in depth. We have the possibility to document it to make it known to society, which is to whom the site belongs. ” At the same time, energy continued with its plans to lift the complex, but adapting to the situation. “We had to modify the project as a kind of ‘tetris’ to adapt the configuration of the panels to the different areas of the deposit. In the end, we have managed to preserve the generation capacity at the same time that it was possible to protect all the areas of archaeological interest that have been discovered, ”said Jenifer Andreu, from Actiona. Roman mystery. However, the story had a little girl, which gave the discovery of a mysterious grave. Montserrat Girón is the Coordinator of Archaeological Teams of Tera and comments that they have focused on giving a first sweep to pave the way to following investigations. And it turns out that they have not only found the remains of the inhabitants of the 2800 BC, but also of the 5th century DC Specifically, an almost superficial tomb that had the remains of a male between 25 and 35 years old who lived in the time of the low Roman Empire. He was face down and with a military dagger on his back. You cannot know if nailed or not, but Montserrat jokes saying that, although it is a mystery, it does not look good. Face down and with a dagger on the back. It may be that of that person and be buried with him as a tribute … or who was killed The reason is that, beyond the dagger, the body was whole, except the feet, which seem to have been cut, and the grave had much smaller dimensions than necessary for a body of that size, indicating that it was a Hurd burial. As much as it may be, the efforts at this time is to continue investigating the area of ​​this huge bastion in which they have appeared multitude of vestiges such as loom plates, plates, flint arrow tips, chisels and even ornamental and religious elements. Images | Tera Act In Xataka | We have found new vestiges of the Roman era. We are not very sure what they did in a cave of the Pyrenees

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