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.