Guilty: Men who made their money from misery
SMUGGLER GANG KILLED 39 VIETNAMESE MIGRANTS PACKED IN LORRY CONTAINER
RUTHLESS human traffickers could be facing life in jail after being convicted of killing 39 Vietnamese workers who suffocated in a lorry container.
Ringleader Gheorghe Nica, 43, and lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, were found guilty of manslaughter for their roles in the transportation and deaths of the migrant workers discovered in Grays, Essex, in October 2019.
Speaking after yesterday’s verdicts, Det Ch Insp Daniel Stoten, of Essex Police, said: ‘The criminals involved in this case made their money from misery – they knew what they were doing is dangerous and they did it anyway.
‘They tried to cover their tracks, they tried to hide what they were doing – some fled abroad hoping we would not be able to bring them back but today they’ve been proven wrong on every account.’
Old Bailey jurors heard how an earlier smuggling attempt by the plotters the same month was foiled by the authorities. But they responded by doubling the size of the next contingent – the doomed group of migrants.
The mastermind behind the trafficking operation, Irish haulage boss Ronan Hughes (pictured), 41, pleaded guilty to manslaughter before the trial began. He was said to be making £1million a month from the smuggling operation.
Harrison, of Co. Down, Northern Ireland, and Nica, of Basildon, Essex, were found guilty of 39 counts of manslaughter. Lorry drivers Christopher Kennedy, 24, of Co. Armagh, and Valentin Calota, 38, of Birmingham, were convicted of assisting illegal immigration.
The gang offered a ‘VIP’ service to Vietnamese migrants, who gathered in Belgium and France and were charged about £13,000 to be transported from Zeebrugge through the Channel Tunnel or by boat to Purfleet.
Tip-offs to police about suspicious activity by the network, led by Hughes and Nica, went unheeded for months. One resident, Marie Andrews, said Essex Police ‘had not been listening’ when she raised concerns about apparent peoplesmuggling in Orsett, Essex.
The victims, aged between 15 and 44, who had frantically attempted to send text messages about their plight, were found dead by driver Maurice Robinson shortly after he took delivery of the container at Purfleet docks and drove it to a nearby industrial estate. He had opened the doors after getting a Snapchat message from Hughes telling him to ‘give them air quickly don’t let them out’. Robinson, 26, of Craigavon, Northern Ireland, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in April. The four convicted yesterday were told they would be sentenced in January along with Robinson and Hughes.