The China Mail - Police question French rapper over drug baron's prison break

Koba LaD was among 24 people who were detained and questioned on Monday as part of a widening French police inquiry into the shocking escape of Mohamed Amra in May 2024.

Amra was sprung from a prison van at a motorway toll when masked gunmen armed with automatic weapons killed two prison guards and injured three others in scenes that stunned the country.

French police have been trying to understand the link between Amra and a suspected criminal gang called the "Black Manjak Family".

Koba LaD, who grew up in a deprived Parisian suburb and has a long criminal record, regularly features the letters "BMF" in his videos and songs.

The 24-year-old, whose real name is Marcel Junior Loutarila, has around three million followers on Instagram and was scheduled to perform at the 9,000-capacity Adidas Arena in Paris next week.

He was already in jail awaiting trial over a deadly road accident last year, but he was removed from his cell and questioned over the Amra case, two sources told AFP.

Paris prosecutors did not confirm the detention and Koba LaD's lawyer declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

There have been four waves of arrests over Amra's deadly prison break, which served to highlight the spread of extreme violence linked to the drugs trade in France.

Amra was arrested near a shopping centre in Bucharest in February after months on the run, during which the French government labelled him "public enemy number one".

P.Deng--ThChM