Drug gangs in Europe no longer “hesistate” to use the brutal murderous methods of Mexican cartels, according to a report from two French senators.
Their statement comes amid a police manhunt for an escaped drug dealer, that scarpered from French authorities following an ambush yesterday that saw two officers shot dead.
The inmate, Mohamed Amra, known as The Fly, remains at large as police desperately try to bring him to justice.
The report, released on the same day as the shocking ambush, was authored by French senators Jérôme Durain from the Socialist Party and Etienne Blanc from the centre-right, Les Republicans.
Ominously, the senators concluded that the “processes used by South American and Mexican cartels were until now unknown in Europe”, but now groups, such as the one that freed Amra yesterday, feel emboldened to employ brutal tactics associated with overseas narco-gangs.
They added that “criminal organisations, even in Europe, no longer hesitate to challenge the State”.
In total, following yesterday’s vicious attack, two officers were killed and three others seriously wounded.
The shocking hold-up took place at a motorway toll booth near to the town of Val-de-Reuil in Normandy.
Amra and his fellow gang members sped away in two vehicles – an Audi A5 and a BMW 5 series. The BBC reports that Amra remains at large.
A local police souce said: “The ambush happened at the Incarville toll booth on the A154 road. Kalashnikovs are thought to be have been used.”
Alexandre Rassaërt, president of the Eure Departmental Council, which covers Vale-de-Reuil, said: “I was frozen with horror when I learned of the real carnage that took place at the Incarville tollbooth.
“I sincerely hope that the gang of killers who carried out this bloody attack will be quickly arrested.
“All my thoughts go to the families of the service agents. penitentiary who escorted the detainees and who were killed or seriously injured during this attack which gave them no chance.
“I also think of all the prison administration guards who, every day, guard prisoners at the risk of their lives.
France’s Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said: “All my thoughts are with the victims, their families and their colleagues.”
French President Emmanuel Macron says the attack this morning is a “shock to us all”. He wrote on social media site X: “The nation stands alongside the families, the injured and their colleagues. Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime so that justice can be done in the name of the French people.”