Seven months after the death of 39 people in a truck in the UK, 26 suspects were arrested in France and Belgium. Thirteen of them arrested in the Greater Paris area are suspected of belonging to a criminal organization, the Paris public prosecutor said today. This is said to have hosted and illegally smuggled several dozen migrants from Southeast Asia, especially from Vietnam, every day for months.
On October 23, 39 bodies were discovered in a refrigerated truck in a place in Essex near London. The 31 men and eight women were probably smuggled into the country in this way. A ship had previously brought the container from Belgium to England. The victims came from Vietnam. The case had highlighted smuggling.
The now large-scale action was carried out in cooperation with investigative groups from France, Belgium, Great Britain, Ireland and was coordinated by the European Union Agency for Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters. It was also supported by Interpol. Investigations had opened in Paris and are following an investigation into the fall of 2019 in the UK. The arrests were made yesterday, the Paris prosecutor said.
