Essex lorry deaths: Man arrested in connection with deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants
A man has been arrested at a supermarket petrol station in Middlesbrough in connection with the investigation into the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants found in a refrigerated container in Essex in 2019.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said that the Vietnamese national, who is not being named, was detained at the site just off the A66 at about 1pm this afternoon (17th June).
He is wanted by the Belgian authorities, who allege he was a member of a people-smuggling network moving migrants through Belgium and France and into the UK in the back of lorries.
He is suspected of running safe houses in Brussels, where the migrants stayed before their fatal journey. He is also accused of organising their onward transport in taxis to the collection point in France, where they were stowed in the rear of the refrigerated lorry.
The bodies of the 39 Vietnamese nationals were discovered at an industrial estate in Grays in Essex, shortly after the container arrived on a ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium in the early hours of October 23 2019. Among the men, women and children were 10 teenagers, two of them 15-year-old boys.
A Belgian investigating magistrate issued an arrest warrant in December, suspecting that the man was now in the UK and had links to the Birmingham area. However NCA investigators were able to track him down to a location in Middlesbrough where he was detained.
He is expected to appear before Westminster Magistrates on Friday where extradition proceedings will begin.
Earlier this year seven people were given jail terms totalling more than 92 years for their roles in the events which led to the Essex deaths, including four men who were found guilty of manslaughter.