Mohammed Amra, a French fugitive known as “The Fly”, who was freed by gunmen in a brazen attack against a prison van in May, was arrested in Romania on Saturday, the French interior minister said.
French police had launched a massive manhunt for the fugitive, whose escape resulted in the deaths of two prison guards and was seized upon by right-wing politicians as evidence that France had lost its grip on drug crime.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said he had been convicted of burglary by a court in Evreux on May 10 and was being held at the Val de Reuil prison until his escape on May 14.
Police sources said Amra is an international drug trafficker, a suspect in a kidnap and murder case in Marseille, and had ties to the southern city’s powerful “Blacks” gang.
According to reports prison guards found Amra sawing through the bars of his cell two days before the attack.
