Essex lorry deaths: Romanian people smuggler jailed for manslaughter of 39 migrants

A people smuggler has been jailed for more than 12 years for the manslaughter of 39 migrants who were found dead in a lorry trailer in Essex in 2019.

Marius Mihai Draghici, 50, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey last month to 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

The Romanian was described as a “right-hand man” in the people-smuggling gang responsible for the deaths of the Vietnamese migrants.

He fled the country after the bodies were discovered and was detained by police in Romania last August and returned to the UK.

In a televised sentencing at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, Mr Justice Garnham jailed Draghici for 12 years and seven months.

He told the defendant he was an “essential cog” in a conspiracy which made “astonishing profits out of the exploitation of people desperate to get to the UK”.

He said the conditions inside the trailer where the victims died were “unspeakable” with “people trapped inside the trailer with no ventilation and no way of getting out”.

The victims – including men, women and children – were found dead in the back of a lorry on an industrial estate in Grays in October 2019.

They died after running out of air in temperatures of up to 38.5C (101F) in the trailer, which was shipped from Belgium to Purfleet docks in Essex.

“Their last hours must have entailed unimaginable suffering and anguish,” prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC said.

The defendant was recruited by fellow Romanian Gheorghe Nica, who was previously tried and convicted of involvement in the deaths, and they became “entirely inseparable”, a court heard.

In 2021, four other defendants were jailed for their roles in the deaths of the victims. Nica and Eamonn Harrison were convicted in 2020, while lorry driver Maurice Robinson and haulage boss Ronan Hughes admitted manslaughter.

In January, Hughes was ordered to pay the bereaved families of the victims more than £180,000 in compensation.

The victims – aged between 15 and 44 – had suffocated after being sealed inside an airtight unit for nearly 12 hours.

Hughes had deployed lorry drivers in the plot, including Robinson, 28, who discovered his human cargo had already suffocated in transit after picking up the trailer they were in at Purfleet.

Read more:
The perilous journey that left 39 dead

Shortly before Robinson opened the back of the container, Hughes had texted him to “give them air quickly” but “don’t let them out”.

As part of the investigation, police identified at least six smuggling trips, with migrants paying up to £13,000 for a “VIP” service.

The grim discovery ended what had been a long-running conspiracy to smuggle mainly Vietnamese migrants into the UK in the back of lorries.