A São Vicente district court judge has ordered four young Mindelo natives held in preventative detention for the theft of na automatic teller machine from the Praça Nova branch of commercial bank BCA (Banco Comercial do Atlântico) in the city. The young men were arrested Friday by Judiciary Police.

The theft was one that, because of the preparation and expertise of those who carried it out, took Mindelo natives by surprise. The crime occurred on May 15, when, according to Judiciary Police, four young men broke through one of the walls of the now-defunct Eden Park Cinema, located next to the BCA, to reach the branchs ATM machine. A total of approximately 900,000 escudos were removed from the machine.

"The suspects prepared the robbery for some time, and even purchased the tools needed to carry out the crime. On the scheduled day, they broke through the banks walls, went inside and took some 900,000 escudos from the ATM after fooling the guard who was on duty," according to the Judiciary Police.

Police explain that, based on information gathered, the four individuals had been the victims of a scheme set up by a Nigerian man and a Ghanaian man, who had taken money from them after promising to double it by "duplicating" the banknotes in question. The robbery, say police, was the way they found to "compensate" for the "losses resulting from the money they handed over to the charlatans from Nigeria and Ghana."

The case was solved in just two weeks by the Judiciary Police.