A 50-year-old Romanian national was sentenced on Tuesday in London to 12 years and seven months in prison for his involvement in the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants found in the trailer of a lorry in October 2019.
Marius Mihai Draghici had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and assisting illegal immigration. He had fled the UK, but was arrested last August in Romania and extradited.
The 39 Vietnamese migrants – the youngest of whom were two 15-year-old boys – died of asphyxiation and hyperthermia in the confined space of the container, while being transported to what they hoped would be a new life in the UK.
The appalling discovery highlighted the workings of illegal immigration networks that thrive on the hopes of would-be exiles prepared to take any risk and pay huge sums.
Another ringleader in the case, Ronan Hughes, a Northern Irish road haulier, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Maurice Robinson, who was driving the lorry when the bodies were discovered, was sentenced to 13 years and four months in prison. Eamon Harrisson, the 24-year-old driver who took the trailer to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, claiming he was unaware of the migrants on board, was given an 18-year prison sentence.
The ramifications of the case have led to legal proceedings in several European countries.
A Vietnamese man accused of being the head of the Belgian cell of the network was sentenced early last year to 15 years in prison by the Bruges criminal court in Belgium, while 19 men are accused in France of participating in the vast network of illegal immigration from Vietnam to Europe.
