Paris — Police have arrested 10 suspected accomplices of a suspected gangland killer described as France’s “public enemy number one,” the Paris chief prosecutor said Sunday, as Romania prepares to hand him over following his arrest in Bucharest.

Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the 10 are alleged to have helped in the escape of Mohamed Amra in an ambush nine months ago in which two prison officers were shot dead and three wounded.

Amra, who is accused of gangland murders and drug trafficking, was arrested near a shopping center in Bucharest on Saturday. Romania will hand him over to France within 30 days, his lawyer said after a court hearing in Bucharest.

He had vanished after the attack with military-style assault weapons on a prison van carrying him in northern France last May.

The brutality of the ambush, which was caught on CCTV, shocked France and Amra instantly became the country’s most wanted man.

The authorities tasked more than 300 investigators with finding Amra, who is known as “La Mouche” (The Fly), and has a long history of convictions for violent crimes that started when he was in his early teens.

According to a 2024 judiciary report, he started out with aggravated robberies and progressively “slid towards violence,” eventually entering the world of organized crime.

The report found that authorities underestimated for some time just how dangerous he had become.

Amra is suspected of pursuing his drug-related activities from his prison cell, and even of ordering hits from detention.

Facial recognition, fingerprints

Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin on Sunday published an open letter to prison officers, promising them better working conditions.

He also vowed the creation of “prison police” units and a “high security prison,” in response to concerns that it has become too easy for convicted criminals to continue their business despite being locked up, thanks notably to access to mobile phones.

Such a supermax prison, to be completed within months, would keep France’s “100 biggest drug traffickers” in complete isolation — using Italian anti-mafia laws as a model — so that “a case like Amra’s can never happen again,” Darmanin said.

At the time of his escape, Amra was facing one charge for attempted murder and another for participation in a gangland killing in the southern city of Marseille, a hub for drug trafficking and gang violence.

The Paris prosecutor said in a statement that his 10 suspected accomplices had been detained on Saturday and early Sunday.

A police source told AFP that they were arrested for the most part in Rouen and Evreux in northwestern France, and that police seized weapons during raids.

“They are suspected of having helped in the preparation and execution of the escape, and having helped the fugitive to hide,” the prosecutor said.

Romanian police said Amra was arrested near a Bucharest shopping center and would be brought before a magistrate who will decide on his extradition to France.

After being alerted by their French colleagues, it took Romanian police just 48 hours to locate, identify and capture Amra, the government in Bucharest said.

Amra, who rejects the charges against him, had agreed to be returned to France, lawyer Maria Marcu said. “He respects the decision of the French authorities who want to put him on trial,” she said.

Beccuau said Amra, who had changed his appearance and dyed his hair, had been identified through facial recognition tools and his fingerprints.

The lawyers for the families of the two agents killed in Amra’s escape said they were “relieved” that he had finally been apprehended.

 
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