A notorious French gangster, who staged a spectacular escape from prison over the summer, has been arrested.
Redoine Faid was stopped by police on Wednesday in a town north of Paris. He was being tracked by police since July after armed gunmen sprung him from prison with the use of a hijacked helicopter.
The 46-year-old was serving a 25-year prison sentence for an aborted robbery that cost the life of a police officer.
Faid was stopped at 4 am in the town of Creil, where he is from and where his family lives. About 50 police officers were deployed in the operation, according to LeParisien newspaper. His brother Rachid and an accomplice were also arrested.
Speaking to French radio station Europe 1, a neighbour called Malissa said the raid “lasted not even an hour”.
“I opened the window and that’s where I I saw all the police cars and hooded men. It was absolutely noiseless.
“They (police) said they would launch the assault and a little later it was done.” She added that there was “no shots, nothing at all”.
The fugitive narrowly escaped police in their three-month hunt on July 24, after a chase resulted in the brothers abandoning a car.
It is the second time Faid has escaped from prison. He was first arrested in 1998 for armed robbery and in 2013 escaped another jail by using explosives to blast his way through five prison doors while holding guards hostage as human shields.
France’s outgoing interior minister Gerard Collomb hailed praised the local police force in a tweet for their “commitment, bravery and determination”.
