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PARIS, May 14 (Reuters) - Gunmen wearing balaclavas ambushed a prison van in northern France on Tuesday to free a drug dealer known as "The Fly," killing two prison guards, severely wounding three and triggering a major police manhunt.
The brazen, morning attack at a toll booth in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France underlines the growing threat of drug crime across Europe, the world's No.1 cocaine market.
It came on the same day that France's Senate released a major report on drug trafficking, warning that the country faces a "tipping point" from rising narco violence that represents "a threat to the fundamental interests of the nation."
The fugitive inmate, named Mohamed Amra, is a 30-year-old drug dealer from northern France, according to the Paris prosecutor's office and police sources. He had been convicted of burglary by a court in Evreux on May 10 and was being held at the Val de Reuil prison.
Amra had also been indicted by prosecutors in Marseille for a kidnapping that led to a death, the Paris prosecutor's office said. A police source in Marseille said Amra was a drug dealer with ties to the city's powerful "Blacks" gang.