Police in northern France have launched an "unprecedented" manhunt for a notorious gangster after he was busted out of jail by gun-toting thugs on Tuesday.
The armed men who facilitated the jailbreak shot and killed two guards before fleeing the scene with Mohamed Amra, a 30-year-old better known as "The Fly."
According to Fox News, a prison convoy was transporting Amra back to jail in the Norman town of Evreux following a hearing in nearby Rouen when it stopped at a toll booth on the A154 highway.
Out of nowhere, a car rammed into the front of the convoy. It was later revealed by authorities in Paris that the vehicle had been stolen, and passed through the toll gate ahead of the convoy before turning around and waiting for it.
Armed men then jumped out and proceeded to shoot at the convoy while Amra escaped and made his way over to the vehicle, which had since been joined by another preventing the convoy from leaving.
The two guards killed in the attack have been identified as a 52-year-old father of two and a 34-year-old man who had recently gotten married and was just weeks away from becoming a father himself.
An estimated 450 members of law enforcement are currently searching for Amra, who is alleged to have been involved in drug trafficking and was recently indicted in Marseille for taking part in a kidnapping that resulted in a death.
The attack stunned the nation; prison employees from coast to coast held a moment of silence on Wednesday, and center-right politicians voiced their displeasure with President Emmanuel Macron for allowing gangsters to commit such crimes.
"We're on a path to Mexicanisation," Les Républicains leader Bruno Retailleau lamented. "Prisons are sieves. Dealers run their drug trafficking businesses from jail."
