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Merged Murder investigation in UK after 39 people found dead in lorry container

Nessie said:
There should be a legal requirement for all trailer units to be opened by the driver and checked, prior to leaving the port.
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The trouble is that in almost all cases, containers are locked and sealed with a lead or plastic tamper crimp to stop pilfering. Same with large refrigeration units. In the vast majority of cases, the driver only knows what is in his trailer/container by what it says on the bill of lading.
 
cullennz said:
The ownership is probably purposely convoluted to **** so the organisers will evade identification and the driver can be a "fall scum/guy"
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It's a straight forward business decision. If your (haulage, in this case) company is registered in Bulgaria, you only pay 10% corporation tax. Imagine your net profits are int he £'000's or even £'ms, then the savings are massive, you only pay half of what you would pay if registered in the UK.

And before anyone claims this would only attract criminals, many MNC's do it: Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft - give goods and services in once country, invoice from another.

Imagine if you discovered there was a way to halve your tax (and many do by registering as a company) it makes business sense to do so. Every time you contribute to an ISA or pension fund you, too, are taking advantage of favourable tax concessions, so in itself, the fact the Irish haulage firm is registered in Bulgaria means zippo.
 
Nessie said:
The tractor unit is left hand drive but has English writing on it. It is apparently from Bulgaria, but is registered to a company in NI.

There is little doubt that there is a business link between the two, but is it refrigerated food transportation, or human trafficking, or both or the NI company was unlucky and had their unit hijacked by traffickers?
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Normally, biscuits, apparently.
 
Nessie said:
There should be a legal requirement for all trailer units to be opened by the driver and checked, prior to leaving the port.
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That makes sense but creates paperwork. Should an ordianry lorry driver be expected to open each crate/box to examine what's inside?

Then he or she'd need to fill in various forms an lodge it. Then they'll need insurance against having to take the rap should there be concealed loads of illegal drugs or arms on board. They might need to acquire sniffer dogs and X-ray detectors.

Nope. Impractical and not workable.
 
Vixen said:
That makes sense but creates paperwork. Should an ordianry lorry driver be expected to open each crate/box to examine what's inside?

Then he or she'd need to fill in various forms an lodge it. Then they'll need insurance against having to take the rap should there be concealed loads of illegal drugs or arms on board. They might need to acquire sniffer dogs and X-ray detectors.

Nope. Impractical and not workable.
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Sorry, but to me paperwork is a **** poor excuse for not doing it.

They already have to log hours driven etc.

Not sure how you get to sniffer dogs.

A couple of motion sensor cameras on the trailer to pick up any planting ain't exactly buying a corvette in price these days
 
Apparently its all the British authorities fault for not letting Chinese migrants come and go into their country as they please, since it's not safe to live in China nor is it safe to seek asylum anywhere on the European mainland. It's no wonder that many of these people are willing to risk getting crushed under trucks because staying in France is like a death sentence... (although most of those are Afghanis, Syrians and people from Northern parts of Africa).

They must go to the UK and the UK must let them in!
 
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It could be the driver had nothing to do with the Chinese victims found dead in a container driven by him from Purfleet to Grays, after arriving via Zeebrugge. However, it is understandable the police are keen to understand just what his role was. Who hired him? Has he done it before? How - as a 25-year old rookie lorry driver - has he managed to afford a £300,000 house in a rural area, even mortgaged up to the eyeballs, especially if his girlfriend expecting twins is unable to work? How was it worth his while to drive, as a 'self-employed' lorry driver all the way from Portadown, Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland, having to travel via Holyhead in Wales, if he knew nothing at all about the apparent illegal immigrant smuggling (possibly as slave labour) and whiling away three days awaiting the arrival of the ship?

Truth is, the Chinese form one of the largest group of non-EU citizens arriving in the UK, most of them registering as students.

We know Chinese gang-masters exist, for they were behind the 58 found dead in a similar lorry 2002 on a roadside in Austria and behind the 21 cockle-pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay, earning just £1 per diem.

ISTM this is huge insofar as the police may have smashed a well-organised ring of highly organised, ruthless people smugglers. If the average migrant pays £10,000 for the journey 5,000 miles out of China, then someone somewhere has pocketed £390,000 +.

Maybe that is the answer as to how it could be worth while to a simple Northern Irish lorry driver with a love of C&W and Ulster Unionist loyalism.

Spanish police have broken up a huge Chinese trafficking gang that charged migrants nearly £18,000 each to take them to Britain.

Detectives arrested 155 Chinese citizens in raids in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities across the country. Among those detained were a woman and three men suspected of being the masterminds.

The gang charged each migrant €20,000 to bring them from China, hide them in flats around Spain, teach them some English phrases and supply them with fake passports. The smugglers would buy the migrants cheap flights to Heathrow and Gatwick. Some were also trying to reach Ireland.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-gang-charged-18-000-for-ticket-to-uk-3rml99n3x [paywall]
 
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Nessie said:
There should be a legal requirement for all trailer units to be opened by the driver and checked, prior to leaving the port.
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Completely impractical, for reasons having nothing to do with paperwork.

Here's a loaded semi-trailer, being turned over to an independent driver for the next leg of its delivery. The driver, required to check the contents of the load, opens the trailer's loading doors and sees... a wall of cartons, extending the full width of the trailer and within a few inches of its full height, which is two stories from the ground. The cartons say "Swimming Pool Filter GG2-225" and sure enough 100 of that item are on the bill of lading, but that's only about 5% of the entire load.

Is the load now checked, and he can close the doors and be on his way? Or should he climb up and give the bottom cartons a few good kicks, to make sure he's not really looking at a false cardboard wall with guns or drugs or dead bodies behind it? Or is he responsible for verifying that the cartons really contain swimming pool filters, as well as the rest of the load, which would literally take all day, plus a crew, lifting equipment, and a safe dry bay to do that work in?
 
A very dear late friend of mine was a long distance lorry driver, as was one of my cousins, and both drove all over Europe. The friend was one of the most intelligent people I ever met. Would he have been interested in policing his truck? No, these guys just want to keep on truckin' without a care in the world. It's a tough life, driving endlessly, through the night and having to sleep at the back. If they had wanted a pen-pushing desk job, they would have signed up for office work or joined the border security.
 
It is of course possible that the driver went to the industrial estate to let the immigrants out, in full knowledge that they were there. He has been kept in custody for another 24 hours for further questioning.
 
Nessie said:
It is of course possible that the driver went to the industrial estate to let the immigrants out, in full knowledge that they were there. He has been kept in custody for another 24 hours for further questioning.
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Probably a risky thing to do in a place surrounded by CCTV cameras?
 
Vixen said:
Probably a risky thing to do in a place surrounded by CCTV cameras?
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According to the interviews I saw on TV, it seems to have been common knowledge that groups of foreigners were apparently being dropped off there.
 
zooterkin said:
According to the interviews I saw on TV, it seems to have been common knowledge that groups of foreigners were apparently being dropped off there.
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Hindsight's a fine thing,eh? Some guy said he had sometimes seen people walking around looking lost as though they had no idea where they were.

Others had heard 'rumours'.

Is there actually any hard evidence 'groups of illegal immigrants regularly alighted there'?

I thought not.
 
Vixen said:
Hindsight's a fine thing,eh? Some guy said he had sometimes seen people walking around looking lost as though they had no idea where they were.

Others had heard 'rumours'.

Is there actually any hard evidence 'groups of illegal immigrants regularly alighted there'?

I thought not.
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Did you actually see the reports or are you dismissing them out of hand? What do you mean by 'hard evidence'?

There was, I assume, a taxi driver who said a group of people who didn't speak English who would give him a mobile phone, and a voice on the other end would tell him where to take them.

ETA: Also, please don't put something I didn't say in quotes and imply I did say it.
 
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Vixen said:
It could be the driver had nothing to do with the Chinese victims found dead in a container driven by him from Purfleet to Grays, after arriving via Zeebrugge. However, it is understandable the police are keen to understand just what his role was. Who hired him? Has he done it before? How - as a 25-year old rookie lorry driver - has he managed to afford a £300,000 house in a rural area, even mortgaged up to the eyeballs, especially if his girlfriend expecting twins is unable to work? How was it worth his while to drive, as a 'self-employed' lorry driver all the way from Portadown, Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland, having to travel via Holyhead in Wales, if he knew nothing at all about the apparent illegal immigrant smuggling (possibly as slave labour) and whiling away three days awaiting the arrival of the ship?

Truth is, the Chinese form one of the largest group of non-EU citizens arriving in the UK, most of them registering as students.

We know Chinese gang-masters exist, for they were behind the 58 found dead in a similar lorry 2002 on a roadside in Austria and behind the 21 cockle-pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay, earning just £1 per diem.

ISTM this is huge insofar as the police may have smashed a well-organised ring of highly organised, ruthless people smugglers. If the average migrant pays £10,000 for the journey 5,000 miles out of China, then someone somewhere has pocketed £390,000 +.

Maybe that is the answer as to how it could be worth while to a simple Northern Irish lorry driver with a love of C&W and Ulster Unionist loyalism.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-gang-charged-18-000-for-ticket-to-uk-3rml99n3x [paywall]
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You seem to want it both ways; here you're racking up a nice pile of innuendo and suggestion, but earlier you said this:

Vixen said:
Yet, the press have labelled this poor fellow 'one of Britain's worse mass murderers'. Now, he may or may not be involved in organised people trafficking crime but to labelled this young father-to-be a 'mass murderer' and plaster his face all over the media is beyond appalling and also inhumane and another Chris Jeffries waiting to happen.
.
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Have you considered a career in tabloid journalism?
 
Vixen said:
How - as a 25-year old rookie lorry driver - has he managed to afford a £300,000 house in a rural area, even mortgaged up to the eyeballs, especially if his girlfriend expecting twins is unable to work?
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What are you basing this on? i don't think it counts as a rookie when you've been doing it for five years, which is also plenty long enough to have earnt a reasonable sum as an HGV driver if you're prepared to put in the hours.
 
Vixen said:
A very dear late friend of mine was a long distance lorry driver, as was one of my cousins, and both drove all over Europe. The friend was one of the most intelligent people I ever met. Would he have been interested in policing his truck? No, these guys just want to keep on truckin' without a care in the world. It's a tough life, driving endlessly, through the night and having to sleep at the back. If they had wanted a pen-pushing desk job, they would have signed up for office work or joined the border security.
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Tbf given some fit outs of bedding areas in modern long haul trucks, I'd rather sleep there than a fairly plush hotel.
 
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