Alert – How deadly prison van attack unfolded: Masked gunmen ambush convoy in France before freeing ‘narco boss’ dubbed ‘The Fly’ and shooting dead two guards

Masked gunmen ambushed a prison convoy yesterday and freed a suspected drug gang boss, killing two guards and leaving three others seriously injured.

The terrifying attack, at a motorway toll station in north-west France, sparked a massive manhunt.

Dramatic footage showed the chilling moments the prison van was rammed by a black SUV before gunmen, in hoods and balaclavas, appeared and opened fire with military-grade weapons.

Two guards died, one of them leaves a widow five months pregnant while the other was a father of two. The gunmen fled with prisoner Mohamed Amra, 30, known as La Mouche or The Fly.

Several hundred police, including France’s elite anti-terror unit, joined the nationwide search for Amra and his accomplices, who were described as ‘armed and very dangerous’. 

A graphic detailing how the deadly attack unfolded at a toll station in north-west France

Pictured is the black SUV shortly after it rammed into the prison convoy

Footage shows the moment a car rammed into a French police vehicle at the Incarville tollbooth, Normandy

Footage also shows gunmen at the scene, filmed from a passing coach, where three prison officers were shot dead 

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal called the ambush ‘despicable’ and an attack on the nation and vowed to hunt down the gang.

Commentators pointed to the incident as an example of the growing violence and power of the country’s drug gangs.

The atrocity took place in daylight as the prison convoy was two-thirds of the way through a 34-mile journey from Rouen in Normandy back to jail in the town of Évreux after a morning court hearing. 

Amra, who allegedly ordered a gangland execution two years ago, had appeared before an investigating magistrate. 

As the convoy paused at Incarville tollbooth on the A154 motorway near Val-de-Reuil, the SUV drove into the lead van, effectively blocking it.

Masked men in black emerged from two other cars, brandishing weapons, believed to be pump action rifles and automatic machine guns. They opened fire with armed officers inside the prison vans firing back. One of the attackers is believed to have been injured in the shoot-out.

The coordinated attack was over in five minutes, having been played out in front of motorists, including a coach whose passengers took mobile phone videos.

Amra and the gang escaped in two cars, an Audi A5 and a BMW 5 series, which were later found abandoned and burnt out. 

The inmate, Mohammed Amra, reportedly nicknamed ‘La Mouche’ (The Fly), was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy before the bloodbath unfolded

French authorities were seen towing away a burnt-out vehicle belived to have been used in the inmate’s escape

Forensic officer at work at the site of a ramming attack which took place late morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France

A police source claimed Amra was the head of a narcotics network and had been held under ‘special surveillance’ in jail after trying to saw through the bars of his cell.

He has reportedly been linked to organised crime and drug trafficking as well as to kidnapping and murder.

Amra was convicted of a series of aggravated thefts last week and given an 18-month sentence after using a gun to rob supermarkets in Évreux in 2019.

He has a total of 13 convictions and was also being held in connection with an attempted murder in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, and the execution of a man in Marseille in June 2022.

Amra is nicknamed ‘The Fly’ because of his multiple convictions and his involvement in a range of crimes, with a source saying: ‘He’s everywhere, like an annoying fly.’ French justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said: ‘These are people for whom life counts for nothing.’

French prison guards wear bullet proof vests and have handguns when transporting prisoners. They do not have to stop or pay at toll stations but they are often slowed by traffic, making them vulnerable to attack.