Authorities on Tuesday warned farmers to be on the lookout for phishing attempts using as bait the deadly foot-and-mouth epidemic that’s devastating livestock farms on the eastern Aegean Sea island of Lesvos.
The Rural Development Ministry said scammers have been phoning up farmers claiming to represent ministry officials or laboratories and wanting to brief them on the results of tests for the disease.
A ministry statement said the scammers are believed to be engaged in data theft, seeking social security numbers and other personal information that can be fraudulently exploited. It stressed that real ministry employees would not request such information over the phone, or call people up to inform them on the results of lab tests.
Also Tuesday, the ministry said it had completed payments of €22.8 million – the first so far this year – in compensation to 849 livestock breeders whose flocks were culled amid efforts to stop the foot-and-mouth and sheep or goat pox epidemics afflicting Greece.
Nearly half a million animals have been slaughtered in much of the country since August 2024 to contain the pox epidemic, while more than 10,000 have been killed since March 15 on Lesvos, where Greece’s first foot-and-mouth cases in a quarter-century have been recorded.