“Over the past two months, hundreds of Ukrainians residing in Portugal and who have mobile numbers from Portuguese operators have been receiving phone calls from different mobile and landline numbers in Portugal, where people with a female or male voice speaking in Russian try to obtain personal information”.

Speaking to Lusa, Pavlo Sadokha, president of the association, explained that whoever makes the calls knows the name of the person who owns the mobile phone number and “introduces himself as an inspector from the Portuguese Judicial Police”, but speaking in Russian.

The requests for information include the collection of banking data, which has led members of the association to become suspicious.

“Many people have already contacted us to try to find out who has this data and I know of people who have already filed a report with the police,” explained the director.

“Since the victims of these phone calls have nothing in common other than being of Ukrainian nationality or origin (they are not members of the same groups on social networks), we suspect that some bulk personal data has been breached or stolen, indicating mobile phone numbers with names and surnames and possibly nationality,” the complaint to the Commission further states.

Many of the numbers of the people who were targeted by the phone calls do not exist in the association's database, Pavlo Sadokha explained, indicating that the only common element is that they are part of social media platforms common to immigrants.

These are Ukrainian immigrants and some Russians who are opponents of the Moscow regime, but Pavlo Sadokha told Lusa that the conversations never mentioned political issues, but rather attempts to access banking data.

According to Pavlo Sadokha, the association is collecting the complaints and the numbers used to deliver them to the Portuguese authorities so that the case can be investigated.