The National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) has arrested three people in Maputo, aged between 30 and 35, for embezzling more than six million meticais from a bank in the city through electronic fraud.

The accused took advantage of the failure of the banking system and went to a gambling house to place large bets. They asked the managers of the gaming house to pay the money in cash.

SERNIC suspects that the fraud took place in collusion with some employees of the defrauded bank.

"They opened this account with a purpose in mind. It was only a matter of weeks before they carried out this fraud at this bank, after several months of preparation, in other words, getting the documents to open the account. And immediately after opening that account, they carried out this type of fraud. We want to believe that they may have had some information from some bank employees," said the SERNIC spokesman, quoted by the newspaper Radio Mozambique.

The card used in the operations belongs to one of the citizens now in custody, who lent it to his friends to place the bets. The ringleader of the group said that in the excitement of the games, one of his friends didn't notice the glitch in the banking system.

"As the player plays, he becomes impotent, it seems as if he's blind. He becomes obsessed. I already had 35,000 in my hand. I wanted to see what was left after everything I'd already taken," said one of the accused.

When he checked, he noticed that the amount had not been debited from the account, and he continued to swipe the card without the amount being debited.

SERNIC's spokesman, Hilário Lole, says that this is a common type of fraud, which is why the corporation has been working more frequently with banking institutions to prevent these crimes from occurring.