BRASILIA • Two Brazilian church leaders caught smuggling cash in a bible at Miami airport face a US court this week in a case that raised concerns about financial fraud at fast-growing evangelical churches in Latin America’s largest country.

Estevam Hernandes and Sonia Moraes Hernandes, the husband-and-wife founders of the Reborn in Christ Church, were to appear today in US federal court, accused of bringing undeclared cash into the United States.

They reported $10,000 but were carrying more than $56,000 when detained on January 9, US authorities said.

Brazil has requested the extradition of the pair, who live a swanky life of luxury, on charges of money laundering, fraud and embezzlement. Most followers are poor, but soccer great Kaka of Italy’s AC Milan is a prominent member.

Brazilian evangelical groups like this one raise millions in revenues at churches in Brazil, Europe and the United States. The government does little to oversee their finances, prosecutors and academics say.

“The control of churches and philanthropic institutions in Brazil is precarious,” said Christina Vital, an anthropologist in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil has the world’s largest Catholic population but evangelical churches of more than 100 denominations have grown to more than 26 million members, or 15 percent of the population.

Three other leaders of evangelical churches are being investigated on suspicion of money laundering and fraud by Brazil’s federal police.

“Certainly this may be happening in other (churches),” said Jose Reinaldo Guimaraes Carneiro, a Sao Paulo prosecutor charging the Hernandes couple with pocketing donations from the faithful. “They used the church as a facade for their criminal activities,” said Carneiro.

The Hernandeses, who were released on bail last week in Miami, live a life far different from the hardscrabble realities of their followers. They fly first class and wear designer clothes. They own considerable real estate, including a luxury apartment in Miami, prosecutors say.