Rédoine Faïd: French gangster recaptured three months after jailbreak

Rédoine Faïd, a French gangster who broke out of jail using a hijacked helicopter in July, has been recaptured, police sources say.

The country’s most wanted fugitive, he was detained north of Paris, reportedly with his brother and two men.

Faïd, 46, has called himself a fan of gangster films, which he credits with teaching him how to pull off raids.

He was first arrested in 1998 for armed robbery. The July 1^st jailbreak was his second and most dramatic escape.

He was sprung from a prison in Reau, south-east of Paris, by three heavily armed men who broke into the visitor’s room. They then bundled him into a helicopter flown by a flying instructor who had been taken hostage.

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Faïd had been serving a 25-year sentence for masterminding a botched robbery in which a policewoman was killed in 2010.

He was recaptured in the town of Creil.

Born in 1972, he grew up in a rough part of Paris. In the 1990s, he ran a gang involved in armed robbery and extortion.

He has said Hollywood movies, such as the Al Pacino thriller Scarface, inspired his lifestyle and some of his schemes.

He once approached director Michael Mann – who made the film Heat – at a Paris film festival and told him: “You were my technical adviser.”