As Lee “Lightning” Murray, 26, sat in a Rabat jail after being arrested in a shopping centre, a police official said that a team of British officers had arrived to collect him and Morocco would recognise the international arrest warrant.

Kent Police and the Crown Prosecution Service said that the legal process may be lengthy, lasting several weeks or even months. The timetable will also depend on whether Mr Murray choses to fight the extradition.

Mr Murray, from Sidcup, southeast London, was held with three companions, including another Briton, in the modern Mega Mall shopping centre in the Souissi area of Rabat, by a team of armed police. He is part Moroccan by birth and had been living in a villa for some months. During the arrest there was a struggle with police.

Mr Murray was seized after a two-month operation that included surveillance. An extradition warrant was issued for him through the Crown Prosecuting Service last week. Britain has no extradition treaty with Morocco but it is legally acceptable for another country to honour a British request without a bilateral arrangement.

Kent Police said Mr Murray was wanted in connection with robbery, kidnap and other offences relating to the Securitas depot raid in Tonbridge, Kent, last February.

Mr Murray is a middleweight champion at cage fighting, a combination of kick boxing and wrestling, and has appeared on television. A father of two, he nearly died last year when he was stabbed outside a London nightclub. He and two friends were ambushed by a gang as they left the Funky Buddha in Mayfair.

Police said they had also charged two men with money-laundering offences after a series of arrests by the Tonbridge robbery unit working with several other forces. They have also seized a substantial amount of cash — as much as £1 million — but detectives are waiting for tests to see if the banknotes come from the raid.

Police also stopped a man and a woman on the M25 and a second man was arrested on the M3.

Five men and two women have already been charged in connection with the robbery and are due to appear in court next month.

More than £20 million of the record £53,116,760 stolen has so far been recovered.

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