3 more arrests over hacking bank account

Three more suspects were arrested in a probe of alleged hackers who accessed French President Nicolas Sarkozy's bank account and made withdrawals.

Three more suspects were arrested in a probe of alleged hackers who accessed French President Nicolas Sarkozy's bank account and made withdrawals, a source close to the inquiry said.

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The latest arrests yesterday brought to six the number of people suspected of having a role in hacking into the French leader's account.

Sarkozy filed complaints last month about the theft, which involved small amounts of money taken from his account in a bank in the Neuilly suburb of Paris, which were used to set up several mobile phone subscriptions.

The suspects include two Senegalese men and a woman who worked in a mobile phone store in the northwest city of Rouen.

Two of the people detained on Wednesday are also employed in a mobile phone store and they "are suspected of having participated knowingly in opening fraudulent phone accounts" with the bank cards of the victims, the source said.

The third detainee on Wednesday is "suspected of having requested the opening of the accounts," the source added.

Earlier the same source confirmed to AFP a report on the website Mediapart that Sarkozy's father and his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, were among some 50 victims in the case.