Vietnam teen fights for his life after he’s found crammed into Romanian’s suitcase
‘Airtight containers’
A VIETNAMESE boy is critically ill in hospital after being found crammed in a suitcase in a new people-smuggling horror.
The child, who is thought to be 16, was found after UK Border Force officials opened the piece of luggage in Devon on Wednesday.
The incident highlights the risks desperate refugees are willing to take to start a new life in Britain as the migrant crisis continues to engulf Europe.
The boy is understood to have been conscious when he was rescued from the boot of a car following a 90-minute ferry crossing from Calais. Romanian Andrei Iancu, 20, appeared in court yesterday charged with people trafficking.
The suitcase was in the boot of a silver Skoda Octavia which was stopped at the busy port in a search area for vehicles arriving in the UK from France.
Paramedics were called and the teenager was taken to hospital in a potentially ‘lifethreatening’ condition, said Kent Police. He has since improved and officers are waiting to speak to him.
Bearded Iancu appeared before Medway Magistrates’ Court in Chatham, Kent, via a video link from Folkestone police station.
Wearing a grey tracksuit, he spoke through an interpreter, giving no indication of a plea and speaking only to confirm his name, date of birth and nationality during the short hearing.
Prosecutor Debbie Jones told the court that when the boy was found, he began fitting.
Iancu was remanded in custody until June 29 when he will appear at Canterbury Crown Court.
Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, has warned that migrant smuggling was now a major business for criminals across Europe.
It said traffickers were charging asylum seekers £6,200 each to be crammed into the space between a vehicle’s engine and bonnet in the hope of evading border guards. Other dangerous methods include packing migrants into overcrowded lorries and vans with insufficient air or concealing them in ‘airtight containers’.
Earlier this week, police warned that organised crime gangs were operating a network of Vietnamese nail salons covering the whole of the UK. They use the shops to launder money from cannabis farms and prostitution, and are moving child slaves between branches to avoid detection.
In 2017, a total of 5,145 people were recorded in the National Referral Mechanism as potential victims of slavery – 739 were Vietnamese, the third highest group after Albanian and British.
Vietnamese nationals made up the highest number of victims of labour exploitation and 362 Vietnamese children were referred, up from 277 in 2016.
Last year it was revealed record numbers of fines had been issued to lorry drivers for carrying illegal immigrants into Britain.
Drivers of heavy goods vehicles – the overwhelming majority going through Calais – were hit with 3,552 penalty notices in 2016-17, equivalent to one every two hours. It was a 12 per cent increase on the 3,151 fines imposed the year before and up more than five-fold on 2011-12, when just 648 were issued.
Overall, hauliers had to pay £7.8 million in fines in the last financial year.