Oct. 4 (UPI) — Police in France arrested notorious gangster Redoine Faid on Wednesday three months after he escaped from prison using a helicopter, authorities said.
LeParisien newspaper reported a team of about 50 police officers took part in the operation to arrest Redoine Faid, his brother Rachid Faid, his nephew and the owner of the apartment in Creil, where he was arrested. Police arrested another nephew and two other suspects at a separate location.
Redoine Faid, 46, was serving 25 years in prison for a bank robbery that resulted in the death of a police officer when he escaped July 1 from the Reau prison south of Paris. Armed men broke into the facility and created a diversion before whisking him away in a hijacked helicopter.
The BBC reported authorities had been monitoring cellphones being used by the suspects in the jail break.
He escaped once before, from the Sequedin prison in 2013, using explosives to bust out of prison with the assistance after taking four guards hostage.
Redoine Faid headed a gang that took part in robbery and extortion schemes in Paris in the 1990s. He wrote a book in 2010 saying he had given up a life of crime.
