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A man was arrested on Friday, November 22, as part of the mass-truck operation, in which the dead bodies of 39 Vietnamese migrants were discovered in October.
The man was arrested this Friday morning on a highway in Essex, not far from London. The 23-year-old Irishman is suspected of smuggling and assisting illegal immigration as part of the mass grave truck investigation where the bodies of 39 illegal immigrants from Vietnam were found. .
On October 23, the bodies of 31 men and 8 women were found on board a container in the industrial area of Grays, east of London. The container came from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. The driver of the truck, Maurice Robinson, was arrested the same day. He also from Northern Ireland, this 25-year-old man is scheduled to appear Monday in London court for homicide , trafficking in human beings, assistance with illegal immigration and money laundering.
Another Northern Irishman, Eamon Harrison, was arrested in Dublin. The 22-year-old trucker is subject to extradition proceedings for the same charges. He was the one who supplied the refrigerated truck and drove it on the Belgian side to the port of Zeebrugge.
Three other suspects were arrested and released on bail as part of the investigation. Two others are still wanted. They are two North Irish brothers suspected of having played a key role in the organization of the traffic. Nearly a dozen arrests have also taken place in Vietnam.
Many of the victims were from a poor region of central Vietnam, which lives as well as they can from fishing, agriculture or industry. Families are getting into thousands of dollars to send one of them to the United Kingdom, via clandestine channels, in the hope that they will find profitable jobs there. Due to lack of money, the families of the victims could not repatriate their bodies.
(With AFP)