SEVEN people smugglers have been jailed for a total of more than 92 years in prison after the tragic deaths of 39 Vietnamese nationals in October 2019.
The men had worked together to smuggle people illegally into the UK, with some receiving astonishingly high payment for their services, across three dates in October 2019.
They were jailed at the Old Bailey on Friday after the discovery of 39 bodies in Waterglade Industrial Park, Grays on October 23, 2019.
Police officers were called by the ambulance service shortly after 1.40am on October 23, 2019, following a 999 call from lorry driver Maurice Robinson.
When officers arrived at the scene, they made the tragic discovery of 39 Vietnamese victims in the trailer of the lorry.
The brave officers went into the trailer and checked each person, one by one, to determine if there were any signs of life.
Robinson had picked up the trailer at the Port of Tilbury shortly at around 1am, before parking up in Eastern Avenue to ‘give [them] some air’, as per a Snapchat message from his boss, Ronan Hughes.
Upon opening the doors and realising that the people inside were not breathing, Robinson closed the doors again and made a series of phone calls to his bosses, driving around West Thurrock until he had abandoned his burner phone and come up with a plan.
Half an hour later, he parked up on Eastern Avenue for a second time, and that was when he made the call to the ambulance service. Robinson, who had denied any knowledge of people being in the trailer, was arrested at the scene. The investigation identified that he had been involved in the conspiracy for some time.
The 26-year-old, from Laurel Drive in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, admitted 39 counts of manslaughter, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and acquiring criminal property prior to the beginning of the trial. He was sentenced to 13 years, four months.
The leader of the conspiracy was Robinson’s boss, 41-year-old Ronan Hughes. Hughes left Thurrock and boarded a plane back to Ireland on the day of the discovery.
He admitted all offences and was jailed for 20 years.
Gheorghe Nica, 44, of Mimosa Close in Langdon Hills. Nica and Hughes would arrange the collection of the migrants in France and their transport to the UK. Nica would also arrange drivers to pick up migrants from Collingwood Farm in Orsett once they had successfully been taken there by the lorries.
He, along with lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, were convicted of 39 counts of manslaughter and one count of conspiracy to assist illegal immigration following a ten-week trial at the Old Bailey last year and jailed for 20 years.
Harrison, 24, of Mayobridge in Northern Ireland, had the job of picking up migrants at designated drop-off points in France and Belgium on a number of occasions. He would load migrants onto the airtight trailer and lock them in – leaving them with no method of escape, before dropping the trailer at Zeebrugge for its onward journey to Purfleet. He was jailed for 18 years.
Four others were jailed for being part of the same ring; Christopher Kennedy, 24, of Corkley Road in Darkley, County Armagh, was jailed for seven years.
Valentin Calota, 38, of Cossingham Road in Birmingham, worked with Nica to transport migrants into London once they had arrived in Essex. He was jailed for four and a half years.
Alexandru Hanga, 28, of Hobart Road in Tilbury, was jailed for three years and Gazmir Nuzi, 43, of Barclay Road, Tottenham, was jailed on January 11.
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