notorious French gangster Redoine Faid breaks free from jail in dramatic helicopter escape

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France’s most famous gangster on Sunday made a spectacular jailbreak with the help of three heavily-armed accomplices who landed in his jail in a helicopter and flew out with him on board.

Redoine Faid was being visited by his brother in Réau prison in the Paris region when the men burst into the room on Sunday morning and extracted him.

A third man waited in the helicopter in the prison courtyard to watch over the pilot, a flying instructor whose aircraft the men hijacked in a nearby airfield and whom they forced to take part in the dramatic operation.

It was the second time Faid, 46, has pulled off a spectacular jailbreak.

In 2013 he became the country’s most-wanted criminal after he blasted his way out of another prison using dynamite. He briefly took four wardens hostage before being recaptured six weeks later in a cheap hotel room.

Faid, who has said he was inspired by US films such as "Scarface" and "Heat", was serving 25 years in Réau prison for his part in a botched 2010 cash-transport van robbery that he masterminded.

The helicopter that extracted him on Sunday flew right across the Paris region from the jail southeast of the capital, before being dumped not far from Charles de Gaulle airport to the northeast of the city.

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