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The human trafficking network behind the tragedy of the Essex immigrant deaths was an Irish-Romanian company.
Gheorghe Nica
The Romanian Nica was said to be the “key organizer”.
A friend and former colleague of Irish Transport Chief Ronan Hughes, he spent years working in Ireland and England as a truck driver and mechanic.
The 43-year-old was also involved in “large-scale” smuggling of cigarettes and whiskey, according to Valentin Calota.
Nica, who was well acquainted with truck depots in Essex, paid Calota and other members of the Romanian community with cash to bring the immigrants to London under her close supervision.
He also employed his Romanian friend Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga (28), from Tilbury in Essex, who admitted his role in the gang.
Nica’s senior management position meant he was trusted to look after the money, the prosecution said.
He was caught on CCTV with Hughes, carrying a bag full of cash said to be worth £ 50,000 (€ 55,000) in illicit earnings.
The divorced father of three, from Basildon in Essex, admitted to being involved in two successful careers, but denied being a ringleader, pointing to his Romanian friend Marius Draghici and Hughes.
The defendant, who had joint British citizenship, claimed that he had been caught helping out while waiting for new passports.
Nica told the jury that the family had decided to return to Romania to receive treatment for their young daughter, who was born prematurely and suffered from cerebral palsy.
On October 23, he agreed to allow Maurice Robinson to unload near Collingwood Farm, assuming it was cigarettes or alcohol, he claimed.
Ronan hughes
Logistics chief Hughes had been a truck driver before setting up his own trucking business, which operated on both sides of the border.
In 2009, he was jailed for 30 months for smuggling some six million cigarettes from Calais to Dover.
He admitted to eluding British income of around £ 927,000 and was sentenced in Maidstone Crown Court, it can now be reported.
A decade later, the 41-year-old married defendant, from Dalton Park, Armagh, Co Armagh, recruited a team of young Irish truck drivers to take on the riskiest roles in the human smuggling operation while directing them through smart phones.
He got his hands dirty on October 18 of last year when he tried to cover up human contamination in a pile of cookies with Christopher Kennedy.
He knew there was a serious risk to the 39 migrants on Oct. 22, and he told truck driver Maurice Robinson, who picked them up, to “give them some air quickly” but not let them out.
Hughes pleaded guilty to murder and human trafficking in August.
His brother Christopher Hughes was raised as a suspect early in the investigation and was voluntarily interviewed in the Republic.
Essex Police confirmed that no further action would be taken against him.
Eamonn harrison
The 24-year-old truck driver from Newry, Co Down, was said to be Hughes’s “man from the continent.”
In each of the three human smuggling races, it was Harrison who picked up the migrants and brought them in trailers to Zeebrugge in Belgium to be shipped to the UK.
Described in court as “young, heavy drinker and irresponsible,” Harrison had battled ADHD at school and, at the age of 18, he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a heavy vehicle driver.
In May 2018, he received a civil penalty notice after Border Force officials in Coquelles, France, found 18 Vietnamese migrants sitting on waffle boxes in his trailer.
After being arrested twice in Germany in 2018 for driving incidents, in May last year he lost control of Hughes’ truck in Lower Saxony.
He was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol and sentenced to pay 855 euros, which are still pending.
The accident meant that Hughes had Harrison “on a barrel” because he owed him thousands of pounds for the damages, jurors were told.
Harrison, who described feeling lonely on the road, claimed that he did not know about the migrants in his trailer on any occasion, and said he thought he was helping to collect “stolen truck parts” for Hughes.
He blamed others for loading the migrants in his trailer, saying he watched Netflix in his taxi with the curtains down when the 39 migrants boarded.
But a migrant transported on October 11 said the driver had told them to huddle before dropping them off at Zeebrugge.
Harrison told jury he was “devastated” for the families of the victims.
Christopher Kennedy
County Armagh “team player” Kennedy was another of Hughes’s drivers, though his actual boss was the Irish carrier, Caolan Gormley, who was arrested and released under investigation.
The 24-year-old’s role was to collect the human cargo at the Purfleet docks and bring them to Orsett for subsequent transfer to London on the two successful races.
Between those trips, he was also caught with 20 Vietnamese in his trailer in Coquelles, France, on October 14 last year, two of whom ended up among the 39 killed days later.
On the day of the tragedy, it was Kennedy that Hughes called seconds after learning from Robinson that 39 migrants had died in one of his trailers.
And when a friend asked him what he thought had happened, he said “there must have been too many and they have run out of air.
Growing up on a small estate in Keady, Kennedy felt the pressure of being the oldest of four siblings, particularly after his father had an accident and could no longer work.
But he racked up three driving infractions since he was 13 when he was illegally caught behind the wheel of a tractor.
It meant that, despite obtaining his heavy vehicle license at the age of 19, finding work was challenging.
In June of last year, Mr Gormley, also from Co Armagh, gave him a job driving goods around England for £ 550 a week.
Kennedy claimed that he agreed to exchange the illegal cigarettes for “extra money” and did not realize that there were immigrants.
He became suspicious when he helped Hughes sort the dirty cookies on October 18 of last year, but said the chief of transportation “just shrugged.”
Maurice Robinson
The 26-year-old truck driver, from Craigavon in Co Armagh, found the bodies of the 39 migrants after picking up the trailer they were in in Purfleet.
He admitted to manslaughter, being part of the human smuggling gang and acquiring criminal property.
Robinson was tasked with collecting the trailer on October 23 of last year and Nica showed him where to take it in Orsett the night before.
In the 23 minutes before calling 999, he exchanged a series of calls with Hughes and Nica, who in turn alerted other team members, including those waiting in Orsett.
When he spoke to Nica, he allegedly told her, “I have a problem here: bodies in the trailer.”
When he finally called 999, Robinson claimed he had found the bodies after hearing “a noise from the back,” even though evidence suggested they had been dead for hours.
Valentin Calota
Nica paid the hired assistant, originally from Romania, £ 700 to drive a van full of immigrants from Orsett to London on October 18 last year.
The 38-year-old had been living and working as a truck driver in Bradford, Essex and Birmingham for years.
Calota, who was single and dropped out of school at 16, often felt homesick and sometimes found it difficult to earn a living.
His precarious lifestyle led to two warnings in 2011 and 2015.
On July 1, 2011, he attempted to steal some Marks & Spencer clothing and was warned for theft.
On July 2, 2015, he was warned for false accounting after he tried to pay for food and beer with a fake Coinstar receipt at an Asda in Barking.
Ireland
Essex truck deaths: Co Down driver guilty of mansl …
Calota knew about Nica’s trade in smuggling cigarettes and alcohol, having met at a barbecue in Orsett in 2017, he said.
He claimed that Nica misled him and that he did not hear or see any migrant on the hour-long drive to London to deliver what he thought were cigarettes.
Calota told jurors: “I shouldn’t have agreed to get involved in any cigarette smuggling. I should have taken care of my own business and I am very sorry and apologize. “
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