HE gave up his worldly possessions more than 50 years ago to live quietly as a monk in a Lothian monastery.
But retired abbot Dom Donald McGlynn has become one of the most unlikely victims of identity fraud after being targeted by international criminals. Hackers stole the e-mail address belonging to the 74-year-old before sending messages to the near-1000
people in his address book. They also took over his blog on the abbey website.
The fraudsters sent out a desperate plea in his name claiming that he was in the Canadian city of Quebec and had been robbed.
The hoax e-mail asked for $2800 to be wired to a bank account in Canada as a "favour" and pledging to refund the money.
The Sancta Maria Abbey at Nunraw, near Haddington in East Lothian, was hit with dozens of calls from worried people who received the e-mail to check on Dom Donald's welfare.
Dom Donald, who is one of seven children who all dedicated their lives to religion, said: "I suddenly found that I couldn't open my e-mail account as I had been locked out. Then we received a call from someone telling us they had received an e-mail purporting to be from me and saying I had been mugged in Canada. I contacted Yahoo and a computer expert there was able to shut down my account so no more e-mails could be sent. But I had 700 to 900 addresses on my account and they have been lost."
The police's fraud unit were called in to investigate after the monks discovered the scam, although no-one who received an e-mail is believed to have fallen for the trick.
Detectives believe the cyber criminals targeted him to take advantage of the trust he developed with people in his address book. Dom Donald stepped down as abbot in 2003 after 33 years to take over the role of master of the popular guesthouse. He joined the order 54 years ago and continues to live alongside the 17 other monks at the abbey, the only Cistercian community in Scotland.
He was in charge of establishing the Our Lady of Angels Cistercian Foundation in Nigeria, where he officially blessed a newly-built monastery and was even made a tribal chief in thanks.
His successor as abbot, Dom Raymond Jaconelli, said: "We had dozens of calls from people receiving these e-mails. Thankfully, no one fell for it."
Detective Inspector Jim Gilchrist, of the Lothian and Borders specialist fraud unit, said: "Organised criminals hire computer hackers to take over e-mail addresses and send out these kind of messages.
"They probably found the abbey website and decided a monk would be a trustworthy figure to use."
The full article contains 468 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
