11 people jailed for role in people-smuggling operation that killed 39 migrants
Eleven men have been jailed for their role in a lucrative people-smuggling operation that ended in the tragic deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in an airtight container in Essex four years ago.
The bodies of the migrants - 28 men, eight women and three children aged between 15 and 44 - were found "closely packed" inside the sealed HGV container as steam poured from the back of it in Grays, Essex, early on October 23, 2019.
Haulage boss and criminal ringleader Ronan Hughes, 44, of Armagh, in Northern Ireland played a "pivotal" role with his fleet of lorries. He received £3,000 per migrant successfully transported from the continent to Essex. He admitted plotting to people smuggling and 39 counts of manslaughter and was jailed for 20 years.
Following a confiscation hearing, he was ordered to pay the victims' families £182,078.90. Romanian mechanic Gheorghe Nica, 46, of Basildon, Essex, was Hughes's friend and partner in crime.
Ronan Hughes received £3,000 per migrant successfully transported from the continent to Essex (PA)He supplied a fleet of drivers to pick up the migrants from a drop-off point near Orsett in Essex for transit to a holding flat in Dulwich, south London to await payment. He was found guilty of manslaughter and people-smuggling conspiracy and jailed for 27 years.
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Nica had tried to minimise his involvement, blaming his associate, Marius Draghici. He was ordered to pay more than £65,000 in compensation to the victims' families.
Haulage boss Caolan Gormley, 26, from County Tyrone, was involved in three earlier runs on October 11, 14, and 18, 2019. He roped in his teenage friend and employee, Christopher Kennedy, as a lorry driver.
Gormley, who had previously worked for Hughes, claimed he thought they were smuggling alcohol. On Monday, was convicted of facilitating illegal immigration following an Old Bailey trial.
The 39 Vietnamese victims of a people-smuggling plot who were found dead in the back of a lorry in 2019 (Essex Police/AFP via Getty Image)Lorry driver Christopher Kennedy, 27, of Darkley, Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, was convicted over the same three runs as his boss Gormley. On October 14, he was caught in Calais with migrants in the back of his lorry and given a "slap on the wrist", jurors heard.
Some of them were believed to have died in a renewed attempt on October 22. Kennedy transported a container of human cargo and biscuits on October 18. The biscuits were all ruined.
He was described by the prosecution as an "integral part" of Hughes' human trafficking team and was jailed for seven years for the plot. Kennedy was found to have made £67,058 and ordered to pay victims' families £6,094.
Lorry driver Maurice Robinson, 29, of Craigavon, Northern Ireland, found the migrants' bodies after picking up the container at Purfleet early on October 23, 2019 for a fee of £500. Hughes had ordered him to "give them air quickly, don't let them out".
The bodies of the victims were found in Grays, Essex, in October 2019 (PA)He stalled for 23 minutes before ringing 999 while he exchanged a series of calls with Hughes and Nica. He received £25,000 for a previous run from Belgium to the UK, as well as taking part in an aborted run of migrants due to be collected from the Netherlands.
He admitted plotting to people smuggling, 39 counts of manslaughter and money laundering. He was jailed for 13 years and four months. Robinson was ordered to pay the victims' families £21,262 after being found to have made £50,000 in ill-gotten gains.
Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 27, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland, was pulled into the scheme as a means of paying off a large debt he owed to Hughes as a result of a lorry accident in Germany while he was drunk driving. Described as the "man on the continent", it was Harrison who picked up the victims on October 22 and dropped off the container at Zeebrugge in Belgium to be shipped to the UK.
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Gheorghe Nica was caught on CCTV in a shop purchasing a mobile phone top-up during the smuggling plot (PA)In the weeks before the tragedy, he had done little other haulage work, being paid a flat fee of 500 euros (£445) per trip. He was found guilty of the manslaughter and people-smuggling plot and jailed for 18 years.
He was ordered to pay victims' families just over £5,000 after being found to have made £11,900. Romanian Marius Mihai Draghici, 50, was Nica's "second-in-command". He fled the country after the migrants' bodies were found. He pleaded guilty to the manslaughters and the people-smuggling plot and was jailed for 12 years and seven months.
Dragos Stefan Damian, 30, admitted waiting at the Orsett pick-up point to transport the migrants to London when the tragedy unfolded early on October 23. He claimed he could not say no to Nica who had him "over a barrel". He was extradited from Italy and jailed for 46 months.
Maurice Robinson (left) and Ronan Hughes at an Ibis Hotel (PA)Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 31, from Essex, admitted collecting migrants from the drop-off point and driving them to south London a few weeks before the tragedy. He felt "beholden" to Nica and could not say no. He was jailed for three years. He was ordered to pay £3,000 in compensation.
Valentin Calota, 41, from Birmingham, was dragged into the operation by his acquaintance, Nica, and drove just one vanload of migrants from Orsett to London on October 18 for £700 plus expenses. He was jailed for four and a half years and ordered to pay £1,137.29 in compensation.
Albanian Gazmir Nuzi, 46, of Tottenham, north London, picked up his nephew from Essex and gave a lift to a second man after they were smuggled to Britain on October 11. He admitted the one-off journey but denied being part of the people-smuggling gang and was jailed for 10 months.
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