These arrests add to that of the driver of the truck, placed in custody as soon as the bodies were discovered and for whom the investigators obtained an additional period of detention.

Vietnamese police arrested eight new people suspected of being involved in the drama of the 39 migrants, probably Vietnamese, found dead at the end of October in the back of a refrigerated truck near London.

Authorities in Nghe An Province (center), from which several alleged victims have come, "arrested eight suspects involved in smuggling rings," Nguyen Huu Cau, a local police official, quoted in the media as saying . Two Vietnamese were arrested last week in the case.