French criminal known as ‘The Fly’ finally caught nearly a year after jailbreak that saw prison officers shot dead
A WANTED convict known as “The Fly” has finally been caught almost a year after he was broken out of prison in a deadly police ambush.
Fugitive Mohamed Amra had been on the run since May after a horror jailbreak which left two innocent French officers dead.
The “highly dangerous” inmate was freed by four gunmen who stormed a cop convoy and slaughtered the officers “like dogs“.
Amra, who was nicknamed The Fly because “he is everywhere”, managed to evade capture since his escape after fleeing France.
France even tasked more than 300 investigators to hunt him down as they requested an Interpol red notice hoping for foreign assistance.
Amra was finally arrested in Romania on Saturday, according to the country’s interior minister Catalin Predoiu.
The gangster was arrested in the capital of Bucharest and is now due to appear before a magistrate in the city.
Predoiu praised officers who “located, identified and captured him within 48 hours of receiving information”.
French interior minister Bruno Retailleau also to X to confirm the successful capture as he said: “I congratulate all forces which made Mohamed Amra’s arrest in Romania today possible.
“A warm thank you to Romania for its decisive cooperation.”
President Emmanuel Macron hailed Amra’s capture as “a formidable success”.
A relieved Prime Minister Francois Bayrou added that Amra was arrested “finally”.
Amra, in his early thirties, has a rap sheet of thirteen convictions and currently faces counts of both murder and attempted murder.
Cops allege he also ordered a mafia style execution in Marseille in 2022 after police sources claimed he has ties to Marseille’s notorious “Blacks” gang.
In the weeks before his planned prison escape the government labelled him as “public enemy number one”.
A source with knowledge of his criminal history once said: “Amra is nicknamed the fly, because he’s everywhere, like an annoying fly.
“He’s been arrested for everything from robbery and burglary to numerous crimes against the person.
“He’s a classic street criminal, and just the type who revels in a nickname. I’d suggest he like to hang around human waste products too, which also makes him like a fly.”
FATAL JAILBREAK
Last May, Amra managed to escape from police custody when he was being driven back by a police convoy from a courthouse at Rouen to Everuex prison.
Shocking video captured the moment four armed attackers closed in from all sides on the police cars.
A black SUV then smashed headfirst into the first police vehicle, and crushed two others behind it into a line.
The four gunmen then emerged from the crash site, clad head to toe in black, complete with gloves and hoods.
Spraying the convoy with bullets, they managed to free Amra before setting off an explosion inside of a car.
Two prison officers were killed during the onslaught and three more were left injured – with two in critical condition and one fighting for his life.
French justice minister Eric Dupond Moretti said the officers, both from Caen, were “slaughtered like dogs by men for whom life means nothing”.
One of the officers, 52-year-old Fabrice Moello, killed in the rampage was a married dad-of-two.
The other officer was named as Arnaud Garcia, whose wife was five months pregnant at the time.
Only days before the career criminal had attempted to make his own escape by sawing open the bars of his jail cell.
Amra was caught and banged up in solitary confinement after the failed bid for freedom.
After his heinous escape, he is said to have managed to escape across the border despite a nationwide manhunt being launched.