A 45-year-old Vietnamese was sentenced by the Bruges Criminal Court on Wednesday, January 19, to fifteen years in prison, for having played a leading role in the smuggling of migrants which resulted in the death of several dozen of his compatriots in 2019.
The bodies of 39 Vietnamese migrants – 31 men and eight women, aged 15 to 44 – were found on October 23, 2019 in the back of a lorry in the industrial area of Grays, east London . They died of asphyxiation and hyperthermia in the confined space of the container while being transported to Britain.
Vo Van Hong, who is one of 23 people tried in Belgium, was considered in the Belgian part of the investigation as the leader of the“criminal organization” having acted from Brussels. The sentence pronounced corresponds to that requested by the federal prosecutor’s office in its indictment, namely the maximum sentence provided for these facts. Vo Van Hong was also fined nearly one million euros.
A network accused of having organized “at least 130 transports” migrants
The container had arrived in Great Britain from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. The investigation then established that at least fifteen of the thirty-nine occupants had been taken care of in Belgium on October 22, before a detour via Bierne, in the north of France, where the group would have hidden in this trailer.
The network had two hideouts in the Brussels municipality of Anderlecht, where aspirants to a clandestine passage to the United Kingdom who had previously transited through Germany or the Netherlands were gathered. According to the prosecution, this network would have organized “at least 130 transports” from Southeast Asia to England, each exile paying an average of 24,000 euros in several installments.
The prosecution said to itself “convinced” that Vo Van Hang had acted as “leader of the Belgian cell” ; which the person concerned strongly defended during the trial. He claimed to be himself ” a victim “ organisation. For the prosecution, he supervised the stay of migrants in transit in Brussels, and gave them, for example, “instructions on when to turn their mobile phone on or off”.
Nineteen convictions
Two prison sentences of seven and ten years were also handed down on Wednesday. The heaviest targets Nguyen Long, a 46-year-old Vietnamese, considered the leader’s main lieutenant and who continued his trafficking activity for another year, until June 2021.
Nineteen convictions and four acquittals were pronounced during the trial. Sentences of less than five years were generally suspended, whereas the prosecution had asked for a prison sentence.
Hideout owners, “stewards” responsible for daily needs in Anderlecht, taxi drivers, etc: the accomplices of the network had also denied their involvement during the trial, their lawyers demanding the release.
A trial is looming in France
The tragedy of Grays had cast a harsh light on clandestine immigration networks which thrive on the hope of aspirants to exile ready to take all the risks and pay huge sums. Many of the victims were from a poor region of central Vietnam, where families go into deep debt to send one of their own to the UK in the hope of a better life.
Legal proceedings have been initiated in at least four countries. In the United Kingdom, seven men have already been sentenced in January 2021 to terms ranging from three to 27 years in prison. These include the men who were responsible for organizing driver rotations, part of the activity subcontracted by the criminal organization to a Northern Irish transport company.
Among these seven convicts, Eamonn Harrison, a Northern Irish lorry driver in his twenties, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for having transported the trailer to the mainland, to Zeebrugge. He assured during his trial, which took place in London, that he was unaware of the presence on board of illegal immigrants.
In Vietnam, four men were also sentenced in September 2020 to terms ranging from two and a half to seven and a half years in prison.
Another trial is also looming in France. At least 26 people were indicted in the investigation opened in Paris in May 2020. Two large waves of arrests then took place simultaneously, one in Ile-de-France, the other in Belgium.