Jailed for 78 years, gang who killed 39 migrants
Smugglers let Vietnamese suffocate in 101F lorry trailer
FOUR smugglers who allowed 39 migrants to die in the back of a lorry were jailed for a total of more than 78 years yesterday.
The Vietnamese stowaways – who paid traffickers up to £13,000 each – suffocated in temperatures of 38C (101F) inside a sealed shipping container on a ferry bound for Britain.
They were found dead when the gang member who had collected the container from Purfleet docks in Essex opened it on a nearby industrial estate.
Mr Justice Sweeney described how the victims endured an ‘excruciatingly slow death’ as the air turned toxic during their 12-hour journey from Belgium.
He said the gang were responsible for a ‘sophisticated, long-running, and profitable’ operation to smuggle migrants across the English Channel in lorries.
Had their trip in October 2019 been successful, the gang stood to make around £1million in just a month. One of the ringleaders, Gheorghe Nica, 43, a Romanian who lived in Basildon, Essex, was jailed for 27 years, while the other, Ronan Hughes, 41, from County Armagh in Northern Ireland, was given 20 years.
Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, from County Down, who put the victims on the cargo ferry at the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, was jailed for 18 years. And Maurice Robinson, 26, from County Armagh, who collected the trailer from Purfleet docks early the next morning, was jailed for 13 years and four months.
Robinson and Hughes admitted plotting to people smuggle and 39 counts of manslaughter.
Nica and Harrison were found guilty of the offences. Robinson also admitted money laundering.
The victims were 28 men, eight women and three youngsters, two of them aged 15. They had been told they were getting the ‘VIP’ smuggling service into Britain.
Instead, they were crammed into a locked lorry container which quickly became airless and stifling. Some tried to batter their way out with a pole and others left bloody handprints where they had banged frantically in vain for help.
Others wrote final heart breaking text messages to relatives as those around them sobbed in the darkness. Addressing the lawyers involved in the trial at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Sweeney described it as ‘a case that none of us will ever forget’.
He said: ‘There were desperate attempts to contact the outside world by phone and to break through the roof of the container.
‘All were to no avail and before the ship reached Purfleet [they] all died in what must have been an excruciatingly painful death.’
The judge told the defendants: ‘The willingness of the victims to try and enter the country illegally provides no excuse for what happened to them.’ Three other members of the gang – who were not involved in the deaths of the 39 – were also jailed for human trafficking yesterday.
Christopher Kennedy, 24, from County Armagh, was jailed for seven years; Valentin Calota, 38, from Birmingham, was handed four and a half years; and Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 28, from Essex, was sentenced to three years.
Prosecutors in the UK are considering charges against a further three people, while eight smugglers have been convicted in Vietnam for their roles. Seven smuggling trips were identified between May 2018 and October 2019, although the court heard that there were likely to have been more.
The families of the victims in Vietnam and Britain have spoken of their loss.
Phan Thi Thanh, 41, had sold the family home and left her son with his godmother before setting off on the ill-fated journey. Her heartbroken son said: ‘I heard about the incident from media so I called Dad in the UK to confirm if Mum was a victim. I was very shocked, very sad and I was crying a lot.’
Tran Hai Loc and his wife Nguyen Thi Van, both 35, who were found huddled together in death, left two
‘An excruciatingly painful death’ ‘The utter greed of these criminals’
children aged six and four. The children’s grandfather, Tran Dinh Thanh, said: ‘Every day, when they come home from school they look at the photos of their parents on the altar. It is a big loss to them.’
Police and border officers missed a series of opportunities to stop the gang during their earlier smuggling operations before the fatal ferry crossing.
Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Stoten, of Essex Police, has admitted chances were missed to catch the smugglers and said authorities were ‘blind’ to the threat.
Speaking after the case, he said: ‘Our pursuit of those involved in these wicked crimes is unrelenting. All of the victims left behind families, memories and homes in the pursuit of a false promise of something better.
‘Instead they died, in an unimaginable way, because of the utter greed of these criminals.’