A 50-year-old Romanian national was sentenced in London on Tuesday to 12 years and seven months in prison for his involvement in the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants found in the trailer of a truck in October 2019.
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Marius Mihai Draghici pleaded guilty to manslaughter and aiding and abetting illegal immigration. He fled the UK before being arrested in Romania last August and then extradited.
Speaking at the Old Bailey Court in the British capital, the judge described him as a “vital cog” in the network and the “right arm” of Georghe Nica, a Romanian in his 40s who was sentenced to 27 years in prison in January 2021 for manslaughter and smuggling.
The 39 Vietnamese migrants – the youngest of whom were two 15-year-old boys – had died of asphyxiation and hyperthermia in the confined space of the container while being transported to the UK, where they hoped to find a new life.
The horrifying discovery has exposed the workings of illegal immigration networks that thrive on the hope of exiled candidates willing to take all the risks and pay sizable sums.
Another leader in this case, Ronan Hughes, a Northern Ireland road haulier, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Maurice Robinson, who was driving the truck when the bodies were found, was sentenced to 13 years and four months in prison. Eamon Harrisson, the 24-year-old driver who transported the trailer to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge and claimed he was unaware of the migrants’ presence on board, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
According to prosecutor Emlyn Jones, Marisu Draghici was present on October 19, 2019 when Georghe Nica made a “very large payment” to trucking company Ronan Hughes after recovering the money from a Vietnamese smuggler.
According to his lawyer Gillian Jones, the defendant is “shocked and appalled” by what happened and is struggling with the enormity of the facts.
The implications of this case led to court cases in several European countries.
A Vietnamese man accused of having headed the network’s Belgian cell was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Bruges Criminal Court in Belgium in early 2022, while French justice ordered a trial of 19 men suspected of being involved in the huge illegal Network to have been involved immigration from Vietnam to Europe.