Abstract. Let A be an abelian variety defined over a number field k. Let P be a point in A(k) and let X be a subgroup of A(k). Gajda in 2002 asked whether it is true that the point P belongs to X if and only if the point (P mod p) belongs to (X mod p) for all but finitely many primes p of k. We answer negatively to Gajda's question.Let A be an abelian variety defined over a number field k. Let P be a point in A(k) and let X be a subgroup of A(k). Suppose that for all but finitely many primes p of k the point (P mod p) belongs to (X mod p). Is it true that P belongs to X? This question, which was formulated by Gajda in 2002, was named the problem of detecting linear dependence. The problem was addressed in several papers (see the bibliography) but the question was still open. In this note we show that the answer to Gajda's question is negative by providing a counterexample.Let k be a number field and let E be an elliptic curve without complex multiplication over k such that there are points P 1 , P 2 , P 3 in E(k) which are Z-linearly independent. Let P ∈ E 3 (k) and X ⊆ E 3 (k) be the following:So the group X consists of the images of the point P via the endomorphisms of E 3 with trace zero. Since the points P i are Z-independent and since E has no complex multiplication, the point P does not belong to X. Notice that no non-zero multiple of P belongs to X.Claim. Let p be a prime of k where E has good reduction. The image of P under the reduction map modulo p belongs to the image of X.For the rest of this note, we fix a prime p of good reduction for E. We write κ for the residue field of k at p. To ease notation, we now let E denote the reduction of the given elliptic curve modulo p and write P 1 , P 2 , P 3 , P and X for the image of the given points and the given subgroup under the reduction map modulo p. Our aim is to find an integer matrix M of trace zero such that P = M P in E 3 (κ).