Hadush Kebatu was forcibly deported to Ethiopia and given a £500 payment after threatening to disrupt his removal, it is understood.
The sex offender, who was accidentally released from prison when he should have been deported, was flown back to his home country on Tuesday night and arrived on Wednesday morning with no right to return to Britain. It is understood the payment was an operational decision made by the removal team, with no involvement of ministers.
The alternative would have been a slower and more expensive process of further detaining Kebatu and putting him on a new flight, it is believed. And this could then have faced a legal challenge.
The cost of cancelling the Kebatu's flight would have run into thousands of pounds. The 38-year-old, who was wrongly released from HMP Chelmsford on Friday, was handed a 12-month jail sentence just weeks ago for sexually assaulting a 14 year old girl and a woman in Essex.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she "pulled every lever" in order to deport Kebatu. She added: "I am pleased to confirm this vile child sex offender has been deported. Our streets are safer because of it."
The Ethiopian national was initially set to be deported but instead sparked a significant manhunt across the south east after he absconded to London. Kebatu had been residing at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, when he committed his offences.
On Sunday, at around 8.30am, the sex offender was arrested in the Finsbury Park area. He was photographed being escorted away by a group of police officers near a bus stop in the north London neighbourhood, clad in a black jacket and jeans.
Three plain-clothed officers guided him to a police van as he faced the ground with a hood over his head. It is understood Kebatu, who crossed the Channel in a small boat to enter the UK on June 29, left prison with an amount of personal money but was not given a discharge grant to cover subsistence costs.
A delivery driver described seeing Kebatu return to HMP Chelmsford in a "very confused" state "four or five times", only to be turned away by prison staff and directed to the railway station. A prison officer has been taken off duties to discharge prisoners while an investigation takes place.