Essex lorry deaths: Concerns ‘snakehead’ smuggling gangs could be behind 39 found dead in trailer

Human trafficking groups known to force migrants into labour in brothels, car washes and nail bars in the UK

Organised Chinese criminals called “snakehead” gangs are well know for people smuggling, prompting some to speculate that they may have a hand in the deaths of 39 people found in a refrigerated lorry trailer in Essex.

Post-mortem examinations on 11 of the victims were due to begin at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, as forensic experts attempt to establish who the individuals were and exactly how they died.

It is thought that a missing Vietnamese who woman texted her mother to say “I can’t breathe” was among them.

Pham Thi Tra My, 26, sent a message to her mother saying “I’m dying” at the time the lorry was on its way from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge to Purfleet in Essex on Tuesday night. She has not been heard from since.

An international investigation to identify the suspected trafficking ring that brought the 31 men and eight women, many of whom are believed to be Chinese nationals into the UK.

The victims’ nationalities have prompted some experts to suggest the incident is bears all the hallmarks of the work of China-based snakehead organised crime gangs.

A snakehead is a term for a criminal who specialises in smuggling people.

Known to employ a variety of transport methods, it has emerged in various court cases that they can charged as much as £25,000 for the service.

Although they are promised a better life on arrival, many are forced into slave labour in brothels, car washes or nail bars, to pay the transporting fee to the gangsters.

Several members of snakehead gangs were jailed in the Netherlands after a similar incident at Dover in 2000, in which 58 Chinese nationals were found suffocated in the back of a lorry after crossing from Belgium.

They were also thought responsible for another tragedy in 2004, when 23 Chinese illegal immigrants were drowned by an incoming tide while cockle picking at Morecambe Bay, Lancashire.

Mike Gradwell, a former Lancashire Police detective superintendent who worked on that case, suggested snakehead gangs may be behind the Purfleet tragedy.

“These are criminal travel agents really - you go to a Snakehead to say you want to be trafficked to an economic opportunity and usually you’ll borrow quite a significant amount of money,” he told BBC Breaklfast.

He added relatives were likely to have been in contact with those being trafficked, who may have been carrying phones which could be used by police to help identify them.

The National Crime Agency, which targets serious and organised crime, said it was aiding the investigation and working urgently to identify any gangs involved.

Meanwhile, Essex Police said a 25-year-old man, understood to be lorry driver Mo Robinson from Portadown, Northern Ireland, remains in police custody after being arrested on suspicion of murder.

He was first detained at the Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays in the early hours of Wednesday morning, after police were called to the scene.

Detectives will later decide whether to charge him with an offence, release him, or ask a court for more time to quiz him.

A man and a woman from Warrington in Cheshire, both 38, were also arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people in connection with the deaths on Friday.

“This is the largest investigation of its kind Essex Police has ever had to conduct and it is likely to take some considerable time to come to a conclusion,“ Essex Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington said.

Three addresses have been searched in Northern Ireland as part of the probe. Irish police are also carried out inquires in relation to the movements of the Irish-owned truck, thought to have arrived in the UK independently from the trailer through the port of Holyhead in north Wales on Saturday.

The Chinese Embassy in London says it had sent a team to Essex, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said police had not yet been able to verify the nationalities of the deceased.

“We hope that the British side can as soon as possible confirm and verify the identities of the victims, ascertain what happened and severely punish criminals involved in the case,” she told a daily news briefing.

China’s state-owned Global Times newspaper, seen as a mouthpiece for the ruling Communist Party, said in a Friday editorial Britain should bear some responsibility for the deaths.

“It is clear that Britain and relevant European countries have not fulfilled their responsibility to protect these people from such a death,” the tabloid said.

Repeated warnings of the rising threat of people-smuggling via Belgium were issued by British authorities in the past three years.

The Home Office was advised in a 2016 report to “prioritise” Border Force visits to smaller east coast ports to deter criminals from using them.

The report, by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, said coverage of smaller ports, harbours and marinas along the east coast was ”poor“ and that officers had not visited 27 of the 62 smaller east coast ports in the 15 months leading up to June 2016.

Additional reporting by agencies