Smuggler jailed for deaths of 39 migrants who suffocated in sealed lorry

A people smuggler has been jailed for the manslaughter of 39 men women and children who were found dead in a lorry trailer in Essex.

Marius Mihai Draghici, 50, has been jailed for 12 years and seven months following his sentencing at the Old Bailey.

Mr Justice Garnham said Draghici had become involved in a people smuggling conspiracy making ‘astonishing profits out of the exploitation of people desperate to get to the UK’.

Conditions inside the container where the 39 victims died were ‘unspeakable’ with ‘people trapped inside the trailer with no ventilation and no way of getting out’, the judge said.

Some of the victims had attempted to make a hole in the trailer with a metal pole with no success, he said.

Audio recordings were also discovered of those trapped inside ‘reporting they could not breathe and a growing recognition they were going to die there’.

The victims – aged between 15 and 44 – had hoped for a better life in Britain when they agreed to pay up to £13,000 a head for a “VIP” smuggling service.

On October 22 2019, they were crammed into the lorry container to be shipped in pitch black and sweltering conditions.

The 28 men, eight women and three children had desperately tried to raise the alarm, with many leaving messages for loved ones on their mobile phones as they ran out of air before reaching British shores.

One unsent text message by a young mother read: ‘Maybe going to die in the container. Cannot breathe any more.’

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC told the court that the victims’ last hours ‘must have entailed unimaginable suffering and anguish’.

Four other gang members were jailed in 2021 for between 13 and 27 years for the manslaughter of the 39 migrants.

They are: Ringleader Gheorghe Nica, 46, of Basildon, Essex, haulier boss Ronan Hughes, 43, of Armagh, Maurice Robinson, 28, of Craigavon, who found the bodies, and Eamonn Harrison, 26, of County Down, who had collected the victims on the continent.

Lorry driver Robinson had discovered the bodies in the early hours of October 23 after being messaged by Hughes to “give them air”, but not let them out.

Robinson had picked up the container at the docks and opened the doors before alerting others including Draghici and Nica waiting at a nearby pick-up point near Collingwood Farm in Orsett.

Mr Emlyn Jones said gang members ‘immediately abandoned the plan and melted away in the night’, with Draghici following Nica on a flight from Luton to Romania.

Setting out Draghici’s involvement, Mr Emlyn Jones said: ‘The prosecution case is that Draghici became party to a sophisticated, long-running and highly profitable conspiracy to smuggle illegal migrants to the United Kingdom, in the back of lorries, in a deliberate and intentional breach of border control.’

Draghici was recruited by fellow Romanian Nica and became his effective ‘right-hand man’ and they were ‘inseparable’, the prosecutor said.

The defendant had accepted being involved in the last three people smuggling runs, including the fatal trip – although police identified a total of seven.

He was present at a meeting at a hotel on October 19 2019 in which Nica delivered a ‘very substantial payment’ to Hughes after collecting the money from ‘Fong’ – the Vietnamese organiser.

Mr Emlyn Jones said it was significant that Nica and Draghici both gave Robinson his instructions earlier on the night of the tragic journey.

The prosecutor said: ‘We accept that the role played in the conspiracy by Nica was more significant than that of Draghici. So Nica is above Draghici in the pecking order.’

But he said of Draghici: ‘He was not just acting as a driver but playing the role of something of a right-hand man to Mr Nica.’

– The 39 victims were: Dinh Dinh Binh, Nguyen Minh Quang, Nguyen Huy Phong, Le Van Ha, Nguyen Van Hiep, Bui Phan Thang, Nguyen Van Hung, Nguyen Huy Hung, Nguyen Tien Dung, Pham Thi Tra My, Tran Khanh Tho, Nguyen Van Nhan, Vo Ngoc Nam, Vo Van Linh, Nguyen Ba Vu Hung, Vo Nhan Du, Tran Hai Loc, Tran Manh Hung, Nguyen Thi Van, Bui Thi Nhung, Hoang Van Tiep, Tran Thi Ngoc, Phan Thi Thanh, Tran Thi Tho, Duong Minh Tuan, Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, Tran Thi Mai Nhung, Le Trong Thanh, Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Hoang Van Hoi, Tran Ngoc Hieu, Cao Tien Dung, Dinh Dinh Thai Quyen, Dang Huu Tuyen, Nguyen Dinh Luong , Cao Huy Thanh, Nguyen Trong Thai, Nguyen Tho Tuan and Nguyen Dinh Tu.

In victim impact statements read in court, some victims’ families described feeling ‘sad and hopeless’ at their loss while coping with crippling debt from borrowing thousands of pounds to pay for their loved ones’ travel.

In mitigation, Gillian Jones KC said Draghici was ‘shocked and horrified with what occurred’ and had struggled to come to terms with the enormity of it.

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