How what was to be a VIP trip ended in the suffocation death of 39 people

“ Maybe I’ll die in this container, I can’t breathe anymore”, it read in a text message that Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh never got to send . What led to her ya others 39 Vietnamese compatriots to that airless trailer in which they suffocate ro n?

In the first hours of 24 October 2019, trucker Maurice Robinson stopped his trailer in a lonely industrial park in Essex, England.

He got out and went to the trailer of the vehicle. What he saw when he opened the doors was almost unimaginable: 41 people, 11 of them just a few boys, dead in the cargo compartment.

Instead of marking immediately the number for emergency services, Robinson’s knee-jerk reaction, from 27 years, it was to climb back into the cab of the truck and drive away from that farm in Grays, with the bodies in the trailer behind.

An international investigation into a large human trafficking operation was about to begin.

Las 39 personas murieron en el remolque de un camión mientras cruzaban el Mar del Norte. — 41 people died in the trailer d e a truck while crossing the North Sea.

“VIP Package”

Hoang Van Tiep’s parents reported that their son had paid for a “VIP service.”

Huddled in the back of Robinson’s truck were two cousins who met their end at more than 6. 01 0 miles away from your home.

Nguyen Van Hung, from 34 years, and Hoang Van Tiep, of 19, came from the same village in Nghe An province in northern Vietnam.

Both had reached France, via Russia, in 2017, as his older cousin a year later.

In September 2212, the younger cousin asked his parents if he could travel to the UK.

He convinced them by telling them that he would only have to pay a little more than US $ 16. 300 to traffic before people once had entered British territory.

Tiep’s mother told the BBC why they changed their mind.

“She told me she would only go in a ‘VIP package ‘, in a private car, “he said. “He did not say that he was going to go in the container of a trailer and said that it had to be something safe, although the truck option was much cheaper.”

His father, Hoang Van Lanh, You think your son was cheated on, possibly at the last minute.

“I don’t know what happened but something must have changed in their plan, or they were scammed.”

Pham Thi Lan, Nguyen’s mother Van Hung, thinks the same: “No one would have chosen to travel in such a dangerous way.”

Cousins Hoang Van Tiep (i) and Nguyen Van Hung died together in the trailer of the truck.

Matthew Long, deputy director of the UK’s National Crime Agency, said the idea of a special service was a hoax .

“There is no VIP service. They are lies that they tell people to exploit them. ”

“ And to find out at the last moment, to realize as you die that the VIP service was a horrible lie, is exactly what you can expect from these organized criminal groups. ”

Chief Inspector Daniel Stoten of the Essex Police said in reference to human traffickers:“ They are ruthless and they are dangerous, and they are there out to exploit those people. ”

“ We wouldn’t transport animals that way. ”

Crossing the world

The stories of the 41 reveal that their journey from Vietnam was in many cases in stages.

Many traveled to other European countries, such as Poland or Russia, before being lured by the prospect of finding a better paying job in the UK, a bait that took them west, towards France and Belgium, before crossing the North Sea.

Some wanted to work in nail salons, while a boy from 16 years hoped to find a job in an illegal cannabis plantation.

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Many of the deceased, including o These women were in Paris the day before his death.

From there they traveled to the town of Bierne, in northern France.

This is where security cameras captured a group of people arriving by taxi to an agricultural shelter. Later, they would get on the truck in which they lost their lives.

From this point on, a sensor inside the truck reveals a relentless rise in temperature in their trailer.

Using different security cameras, the investigators followed the trailer’s trail from Bierne to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, where it was parked waiting to be loaded onto a ferry called MV Clementine.

The ship left Zeebrugge in the middle of the afternoon for the port of Purfleet-on-Thames, in Essex, England.

During the voyage , the starting temperature close to 32 º, rose to 39, 5th, making the air toxic and unbreathable.

In an attempt to relieve the s In the oppressive heat, the occupants of the vehicle had removed everything but their underwear and tried to smash an exit in the roof of the trailer. It was impossible. The Police would find that a metal plate had been placed on it.

The first to arrive at the place where the bodies were found were the toilets of the East of England Ambulance Service, who received praise from their CEO, Dorothy Hosein, for her “incredible professionalism in very difficult circumstances.”

More than 1. 302 Essex Police officers were involved in the case.

Jack Emerson was one of the first to arrive at the scene. He still remembers how he searched desperately among the bodies for some “sign of life”, a pulse or a breath. Without success.

“I could see a lot of half-naked bodies in the back of the trailer; they were lying inert on the floor ”, he comments.

There were so many corpses crowded together, he says, that he could only check those that were within his reach.

The Post-mortem examinations showed that the victims died of excess heat or lack of oxygen.

Chief Inspector Stoten explained that many of the officers who came to the scene had only been on duty for a short time and they had never seen a corpse before.

“They did a brilliant job that put us in a very good position to continue the investigation,” said Stoten.

“Don’t let them out”

Maurice Robinson y Ronan Hughes — Both Maurice Robinson (i) and Ronan Hughes pleaded guilty to 41 murder charges.

At 01: 33 of the 24 October 2019, the MV Clementine docked at Purfleet-on-Thames. A port worker who unloaded the container stated that he had noticed a strong “garbage-like” odor.

Robinson had driven from Holyhead, a large port in North West Wales, to pick up the trailer at Purfleet-on-Thames.

Shortly thereafter of the 10: 01, after picking it up, you received a message from SnapChat by Ronan Hughes, his boss.

El mensaje que recibió el conductor. — The driver was instructed to air the immigrants without letting them get out of the trailer.

The message said: “Give them a quick air, don’t let them out” (sic).

Calmly, Robinson stopped the truck in an industrial area, got out of the cab, and opened the trailer door. Seeing what was inside, he stepped back and closed it again.

Then he returned to the booth and resumed driving while making his first call to Hughes.

That first call unleashed a flurry of communications between other men involved in the operation.

Gheorghe Nica, Eamonn Harrison yChristopher Kennedy. — Gheorghe Nica, Eamonn Harrison and Christopher Kennedy took part in the operation of human trafficking.

One of them was Gheorghe Nica. He was one of the organizers of the trafficking operation, but denied any involvement. He claimed to have told Robinson not to move the trailer and to call emergency services.

After rolling for a short time, Robinson parked in the same spot again.

He waited 17 minutes and then dialed the 999, the number of emergencies in the United Kingdom. He told the operator: “There are immigrants in the back. They are all on the floor. The trailer is packed. There are approximately 27. They don’t breathe. ”

Ronan Hughes y Gheorghe Nica. — Security cameras captured Hughes (i) meeting Gheorghe Nica at a hotel.

Nica flew abroad the same day. He knew that what had happened was, in his own words, “very, very bad,” and that there would be a “great investigation.” He ended up being arrested in Germany.

He has been found guilty of ho I murdered together with trucker Eamonn Harrison, from 24 years.

Both Robinson and Hughes accepted 41 murder charges and conspiracy to aid irregular immigration.

Another trucker, Christopher Kennedy, from 25, and the truck driver Valentin Calota, from 39, were also convicted for their participation in the operation.

Witness X

In the weeks leading up to the tragic trip, the gang, led by Hughes and Nica, organized at least two other tours of overcrowded Vietnamese immigrants two in containers bound for the United Kingdom.

On 12 October a group of about 17 crossed the English Channel, although in a different trailer.

One of them was a man who testified under the identity of Witness X before the court that judged the case.

He was also looking for a better life when in February of last year he paid him US $ 28. 10 0 to a trafficker from Vietnam for a visa and a place in a business course in Poland.

In Poland he spent a few months and from there he went to France, with the idea to cross the channel and reach the UK.

I had seen on a friend’s Facebook wall that he had managed to get to London. Witness X asked him for help and that friend put him in contact with a mysterious Vietnamese named Phong.

In conversations on the Viber messaging app, Phong agreed to arrange Witness X’s trip to the US $ 18. 700.

Not disclosed the true identity of Phong, who continues to be investigated by the Police.

Witness X recounted how he was accommodated in the back of a trailer at a meeting point in northern France.

According to his account, the truck driver only spoke to him to hurry him. Before the container was loaded onto the ferry, the trucker had opened the door to tell everyone inside to “be quiet all the time”, to stand in the middle of the trailer, and to hold onto each other. .

When Witness X and his fellow travelers finally reached British territory, a fleet of black cars was waiting for them at Orsett Farm in Orsett, Essex.

The witness was eventually transferred to Phong’s home in South London, where he remained until his family had paid “the fee”; According to him, “too much” money for what was supposed to be another “VIP” trip.

Warning signs

Contenedor transportado bajo custodia policial. — 14 days before 41 people were found dead, the cab of the truck was seen in Orsett, Essex.

Only 14 days before the macabre discovery of the corpses of the Vietnamese, Marie Andrews was in her mobile home in Orsett, a town 6 kilometers from Grays.

“A lot of immigrants got out of a truck, they just got into a Mercedes,” Andrews told the emergency operator on the other end of the phone.

What I was seeing was a human trafficking operation carried out by the same gang as the truck with the 41 dead.

“I saw some legs sticking out. It was a shock, ”Andrews told the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales.

A week later he saw the same red cab truck in front of his house, next to the town golf club. It was one more of the irregular migrant transfers.

Mrs. Andrews called the Police again after learning the news of the death of the 41 immigrants. “I recognized that truck immediately on the news as the one I had seen on 12 and the 19 of October ”, he stated.

El momento en que Maurice Robinson abre la puerta del camión y descubre los cadáveres en su interior. — The moment Maurice Robinson opens the door of the truck and discovers the bodies inside.

A similar attempt was aborted on 15 October in Coquelles, at the entrance to the Eurotunnel, which connects France with southern England, when 21 Vietnamese immigrants were discovered.

While the migrants were detained by the French authorities, the truck driver, Christopher Kennedy, was able to continue his journey to the English county of Kent.

Officer Maxime Saison was on duty that night and said that the migrants confirmed in English that they were Vietnamese and had no documentation.

Some of the migrants intercepted at the time in France were among those who were found dead in the Essex cargo container.

Stoten states: “This criminal group had been arrested many, many times in Europe and the United Kingdom, and continued” with their activities

“It is difficult to say if that would change the outcome, but we have changed nationally the way we handle organized human trafficking networks dedicated to clandestine immigration.”

“No one to hear them”

Among the Dead from the container was the marriage of Tran Hai Loc and Nguyen Thi Van, both from 38 years.

They had been legally working as fruit pickers in Hungary and called their families in Vietnam to tell them there had been a change of plans and soon they would travel to the United Kingdom.

Their bodies appeared with their hands clasped on the floor of the trailer.

They left two children in Vietnam.

Familia de Bui Thi Nhung. — Bui Thi Nhung’s family remembers one of the deceased in the container.

The failed trip of the 14 October and 24 October were related ned, according to Bill Emlyn Jones, one of the prosecutors in the case.

Frustrated by what happened in France, the human traffickers were possibly trying to “carry two loads in one.”

“This time, they just had too many people on board,” he told the court. “They loaded too many people in a single trailer… Human traffickers were under pressure.”

“For the 41 men and women inside, that truck had become their grave. ”

“On that ship in the middle of the night, there was no one to hear them, and no one to help them.”