IT’S THE LUCK OF THE DRAW

How laughing people smuggler sickeningly dismissed fate of the 39 tragic lorry migrants

A PEOPLE smuggler has laughed off the fate of the 39 migrants found dead in a shipping container, saying: ‘It is the luck of the draw.’

The British-based trafficker made the cruel comment as he offered to sneak an undercover reporter into the UK using the same route which ended in such tragedy last week.

Separately, Maurice Robinson, the 25-year-old lorry driver who went to collect the container, was last night charged with 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people. In other developments yesterday:

• It emerged that up to 25 of the victims could be from Vietnam;

• The father of a 26-year-old woman who sent a string of desperate text messages as she ran out of air spoke

of his anguish at the ordeal she suffered;

Distraught relatives said some of the victims were planning to work in nail bars in the UK – an industry that has been linked to modern slavery;

It was suggested that the container was part of a convoy of three lorries carrying more than 100 migrants between them;

A second lorry driver, also in his 20s, was arrested in Dublin in connection with the deaths.

Just hours after news of the appalling discovery of the bodies last week, our reporters discovered that a UK-based Albanian using the pseudonym ‘Kace Kace’ was offering to help smuggle migrants into the country.

The Mail on Sunday has established that he is, in fact, called Kastrijot Ahmati and lives in Walthamstow, North East London. He claims to have been illegally smuggled into the UK in the back of a lorry himself.

Ahmati advertised his services and posted his mobile number on a Facebook page called ‘Albanians in London’, which has more than 16,000 followers.

When an undercover reporter contacted him, he told her she could pay £17,000 for ‘fake papers’ that would allow her to fly from the Albanian capital, Tirana.

Alternatively, she could pay £14,000 to be stowed away in the back of a lorry from Belgium – the origin of the container in which the 39 people died last week.

Speaking on Friday, just two days after the grim discovery at Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays, Essex, Ahmati told the undercover reporter that the trip from Belgium can take between 12 and 16 hours, depending on whether ‘the ferry is delayed’.

‘I have done it myself,’ he said. ‘I am trying to find you the easiest way, do you understand?’

The reporter claimed she wanted to travel with another family member, but she was told they would have to be smuggled with other migrants otherwise the people trafficking gang would make ‘no profit’.

She would pay on arrival in the

UK, but Ahmati demanded the details of a friend in London who would guarantee the money.

When the reporter said she was ‘scared’ because of last week’s tragedy, the trafficker replied: ‘It is the luck of the draw. That is how we all came.’

When she continued to voice her fears, saying, ‘We will die’, Ahmati simply laughed.

The trafficker is believed to be from Has, a district in northern Albania, from which hundreds of migrants are thought to have left for the UK. It is not known how long he has lived in Britain, although Facebook posts suggest he has been here since at least September 2018.

Earlier this month, he posted a video of himself smoking a cigarette and strolling around outside a London train station.

When approached for comment last night, Ahmati answered the phone and confirmed he was in the UK. Speaking via a friend, he claimed he had been ‘joking’ in the messages posted online and during the telephone call. In response to a

WhatsApp message asking him to explain his actions, he replied ‘why’. His ‘Kace Kace’ Facebook account was taken down shortly afterwards.

Our investigation found Ahmati was one of four agents using the ‘Albanians in London’ Facebook page to help migrants smuggle their way into the UK.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) last year said Albanian gangs operating at the ‘higher end of sophistication’ were largely responsible for the surge in migrants being smuggled into the UK.

The total number of known victims of modern slavery and trafficking rocketed by 80 per cent between 2016 and 2018 to 6,993, according to NCA figures. The victims came from 130 countries with the most foreign nationals – 1,625 – coming from Albania.

Last night David Wood, former director-general of immigration enforcement at the Home Office, explained how Albanian traffickers operated: ‘What tends to happen is the groups have agents in source countries. That will include China, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent. These agents will be peddling the mythical, “Get to the UK, it’s the land of milk and honey”.’

Last night our dossier of material, including Ahmati’s identity, was made available to the Metropolitan Police. A force spokesman said any relevant information would be passed to investigating officers.

‘They peddle a myth about the UK’

THE desperate last message from inside the sealed container – ‘I’m dying because I cannot breathe’ – brings home the full horror of what happened to the 39 migrants found dead last week.

We extend our sincere condolences to the bereaved. We mourn a national tragedy for us and for Vietnam.

But what do we do then? Compassion without effect is useless. What is the most practical way of preventing these dreadful deaths from happening?

Whatever we may think of immigration, it is hard not to sympathise with the immigrants themselves. It is brave and hard to uproot yourself from your home country and travel, in perilous conditions, thousands of miles to an unknown land in the hope of bettering yourself.

These events are driven by a ‘Golden Dream’ of life in Britain, promoted by the wicked exploiters whose trade is the smuggling of their fellow humans. They are also fuelled by poor conditions in the illgoverned and often corrupt places from which they come.

If our extravagant foreign aid programme did more to alleviate such things directly, it would be easier to defend.

But much of what these migrants believe about their hoped-for lives here is false.

Those who actually manage to arrive on these shores usually find themselves trapped in a world of exploitation and fear, as they struggle to pay their debts to the extortioners who brought them here.

No harm would be done by a Government-sponsored campaign aimed at such countries as Vietnam, warning would-be migrants of what they can really expect, as opposed to what they think they will find. There is another powerful force which brings migrants here. And that is our extraordinarily poor record of repatriating illegal arrivals.

Those who arrive here without papers are still almost impossible to return to their countries of origin, and migrants know it.

There are two ways of combating this. The first is to ensure, by increased vigilance, that fewer such migrants reach this country, so fewer set out.

The second is to develop methods by which they can be speedily returned – the most effective way of discouraging illegal entrants. Those who argue that this is in some way cruel are wholly misguided.

Illegal immigration, as we see, is not just unfair to those already here, and to those who abide by the rules and seek to come here legally.

It is deeply dangerous for the immigrants themselves.

Don’t gamble with children’s welfare

MANY of us enjoy the odd flutter, betting on the Grand National or picking up a lottery scratchcard while doing the weekly shop.

But while this is harmless fun for the majority, for some gambling can become a huge and devastating problem.

Gambling addiction destroys lives, leading desperate people into poverty as they chase that elusive big win. When they lose, they reckon one more bet and their luck will change. And for some, there’s always one more.

So anything that can be done to warn people of the dangers of gambling is to be welcomed.

The Mail on Sunday supports moves to improve the education of children about gambling and its risks.

Troubling new statistics show that almost half of Scottish 14-year-olds have gambled online during the past year.

But we are bound to say that, although teachers and parents have a role to play, betting firms should be doing much more. There must be stricter controls on access to online gambling websites and the toughest sanctions for those firms which allow children to place bets.

Young and impressionable people can all too easily fall victim to the idea that a big win is just around the corner.

And that teenage optimism can easily lead to lifelong misery as addiction to gambling takes hold.