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Romanian people smuggler jailed in UK for deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants who suffocated in truck

  • Smugger Marius Mihai Draghici jailed nearly 13 years in a London court on Tuesday
  • 39 migrants from Vietnam suffocated in a truck trailer on their way to England in 2019

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UK forensics officers work on a lorry, found to be containing the dead bodies of 39 Vietnamese migrants, at an industrial park near London in October 2019. Photo: AFP

A Romanian man who was part of a people-smuggling gang responsible for the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in the UK was jailed for nearly 13 years on Tuesday.

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Marius Mihai Draghici, 50, received a sentence of 12 years and seven months, after pleading guilty last month to 39 counts of manslaughter and one of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

The migrants, aged between 15 and 44, suffocated in scorching temperatures in an articulated trailer brought to Britain from Belgium in October 2019.

Their deaths in the sealed truck underlined the lengths many migrants are prepared to go to reach the UK, and the criminal gangs exploiting their desperation.

An international investigation into who was responsible has already seen 10 people jailed.

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Sentencing Draghici at the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, in central London, judge Neil Garnham said he was a “small but essential cog in the wheels of this criminal conspiracy”.

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