New details surrounding the investigations on the Essex lorry deaths have emerged, suggesting that an Irish gang that smuggles people may have been involved in the tragic journey of migrants now believed to be of Vietnamese descent.
According to The Telegraph, a financial crime team of specialists in the Republic of Ireland has been investigating the Irish people-smuggling gang in question for a year. The revelation came after it was revealed that the Essex lorry's driver, Maurice "Mo" Robinson, was allegedly a facilitator in smuggling activities in the region.
Questions are now being raised regarding the operations of the smuggling gang and how the group was able to keep up with their activities even under the eyes of British and Irish authorities.
Details about how Robinson discovered the bodies and whether he called an ambulance or the Essex Police have yet to be released to the public. However, it is believed that the lorry driver picked up the truck hours after the trailer traveled at sea from Zeebrugge to Purfleet.
Robinson was said to have been part of a "global ring facilitating the movement of large number of illegal immigrants into the UK" but details about the smuggling ring in question are scarce.
The Essex Police is expected to hand out additional arrests in the coming days following Robinson's court appearance on Monday. Robinson was charged with 39 counts of manslaughter and other related crimes.
BBC reported that one of migrants believed to have died inside the trailer due to suffocation, Pham Thi Tra My, told her family through a message on Tuesday night that her "trip to a foreign land has failed."
Vietnamese families have been in despair over fears that their relatives may have died in the trailer along with other migrants who wished for a better life should they have reached the United Kingdom safely.
According to the Mirror, Pham Thi said in her text message to her family in Ha Tinh, Vietnam, that she was suffocating. "I am dying, I can't breathe," she reportedly said in the message.
The authorities have been struggling to identify the victims but necessary documents and other evidential items such as mobile phones have been collected to find put into pieces the largest British murder investigation yet in history.
It was initially believed that the Essex lorry victims were all Chinese nationals. However, it is unclear whether there were hopeful Chinese migrants inside the trailer as the identification process is expected to take days before results come out.
Investigators are looking into claims that the trailer was just one of the three lorries that allegedly carried around a hundred migrants into the U.K.
