Smuggling resumed days after 39 died

CALLOUS gangs waited just two weeks before starting to smuggle migrants in l orries again after 39 died in a trailer, the Mail can reveal today.

As worldwide horror surrounding the deaths of the Vietnamese stowaways mounted, criminals offered to pay lorry drivers an extra £500 per migrant because of the added risk caused by a clampdown by police and the Border Force.

It meant that the drivers were paid £2,000 per stowaway, taking their earnings to £40,000 for a typical lorry load of 20 migrants.

Close associates of the network in Ireland have told the Mail that gangsters still make one trafficking run every week into Britain, raking in around £1million a month.

Police chiefs have refused to say how many lorry loads of migrants get across, but they admit that the deaths of the 39 Vietnamese in Essex in October last year has done little to stem the flow.

After the group responsible for the tragedy was rounded up, other criminals simply filled their shoes, insiders said.

‘Two weeks after the tragedy, lorry drivers on the circuit started getting asked if they would take a load of migrants across the Channel,’ one told the Mail.

‘They offered drivers £2,000 per head, instead of £1,500 as a tempter. That’s big money, especially for a badly-paid HGV driver.

‘The masterminds didn’t seem to care that this was obviously a very dangerous way to travel and could well end in death.’

Last month 15 migrants almost died in a sealed shipping container at the Belgium port of Zeebrugge.

As the air inside became toxic one of the stowaways called the emergency services, who alerted guards at the port.

After a two-month Old Bailey trial finished this week, four smugglers are facing life sentences for allowing the 39 Vietnamese stowaways to suffocate in a sealed shipping container. Another four are facing hefty jail terms for their roles in the trafficking ring.

One lorry driver said: ‘ There are still drivers who are willing to fill the gap. They are lunatics in my view, but money talks.’

Police admit people trafficking networks are hard to penetrate because they operate using subcontracts in different countries.