[katzmeow]

35 innocent victims of people traffickers: Police launch murder probe after man dies in container ship horror.
•Thirty five people, believed to be victims of people trafficking, were found locked inside shipping container yesterday.
•Police launch murder probe after one man died, others were taken to hospital suffering dehydration and hypothermia.
•Workers at Tilbury docks raised the alarm after they heard screaming and banging coming from metal container.
A murder investigation was launched last night after a man was found dead in a shipping container crammed with 35 people, including women and young children – innocent victims of criminal gangs who traffic migrants across continents.
Workers at Tilbury Docks in Essex raised the alarm yesterday morning after hearing desperate cries for help from the sealed container, which had arrived on a P&O cargo ferry from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.
Those trapped inside were screaming and banging on the sides of the box as their oxygen supply began to run out.
Exhausted, severely dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia, they were taken to three hospitals in Essex and East London as police launched a major inquiry to track down the callous people-smugglers who had brought them to the UK in such shocking circumstances.
All the stowaways are thought to be Punjabis from the Indian subcontinent. They included seven young children who last night were recovering from their ordeal. But one man failed to survive. Police said he was found dead when emergency workers forced their way inside the container. Describing the appalling conditions inside the container, Superintendent Trevor Roe, of Essex Police, who is heading the investigation, said: ‘They had obviously been in there a significant amount of time.
‘They were suffering from hypothermia and dehydration. One person had died within the container – that gives you an indication of what the conditions were like.’
Paramedics were on the scene within 11 minutes of the alarm first being raised and the authorities declared it a major incident.
All the survivors were conscious when the container was opened. They were treated for severe dehydration and hypothermia. Their conditions were said not to be life-threatening. Daniel Gore, assistant chief officer of the East of England Ambulance Service, admitted the first paramedics to reach the dockside had encountered a ‘very difficult scene’. Supt Roe added: ‘Staff here at the port became aware of screaming and banging from a container coming from that particular ferry.
‘As a result of that noise, staff were alerted and immediately breached the container to find 35 persons within that unit.
Supt Roe said possible charges could include murder and manslaughter, although there was no suggestion anyone from the container was a suspect.
He added: ‘All of the victims – and I will call them victims – are recovering fairly quickly in most cases, and are obviously being detained under immigration powers. They will be taken to a reception centre within the port of Tilbury.’
Eighteen survivors – two in a serious but stable condition – were taken to Basildon Hospital, where a decontamination area was set up. Mr Gore described the move as a precaution and said there were no specific concerns over infectious diseases.
A further nine went to Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, and seven to Southend Hospital.
Last night one member of the group was discharged from hospital and was taken to a reception centre for further questioning as interpreters were brought in to help communication with the stowaways.

[rapeWhistle]

I'll bet that container reeked of bad curry.

[Megamel29]

This article refers to them as human trafficking victims and stowaways. Stowaways implies that they were in the shipping container of their own free will and I don't think that is the case.

[BigFoot]

Reminds me of Season 2 of The Wire.

[hal0mega]

Originally Posted by BigFoot ↗

Reminds me of Season 2 of The Wire.

Exactly what went through my head

In all seriousness, makes me wonder how many containers out there are actually in this situation that we'll never hear about.

[DEWBZ]

That'd be kinda funny; a cargo container full of people infected with rage

[cubenesis]

That container must have been filled with excrement. That is a long journey, I wonder if they had lights and a sufficient supply of batteries.

[kellyhound]

not much has changed in 4 years besides changing from using trucks to shipping containers.

09 Oct 2010
When Brussels detectives raided the flats at Halvemaanstraat 22 they were shocked at what they discovered.
The address looked ordinary enough for a backstreet in a poor district of Brussels, if shabby. But upstairs, inside a single one-bedroom flat, 24 illegal immigrants were waiting in squalour for the moment they would be taken on the final stage of their long journey to England.
The men, all from the Punjab region of India, were locked indoors and brought cheap supermarket food once a day. Some had been living there for months. If they complained about their conditions, they were beaten.
The immigrants were a human commodity; each had been charged €20,000 (£17,350) to make the long journey via Moscow and Italy. From Brussels they were taken to giant lorry parks on the outskirts, where they would be hidden in vehicles for the clandestine journey through the Channel Tunnel.
Detectives believe it was the biggest and best organised gang to ever smuggle immigrants through Belgian territory.
"This was an organisation that without doubt smuggled thousands of people. They were extremely violent," prosecutor Tim de Wolf told The Sunday Telegraph.
Belgian officials believe a series of trials now concluding in Brussels has shed light on a ruthless criminal underworld which had developed a new route for sending huge numbers of illegal immigrants from India to Britain. Since the closure of the holding camp at Sangatte, near Calais, and a more general crackdown on would-be immigrants to Britain around the Channel ports, people smugglers have relocated to big cities like Brussels and Paris.
The man who led the Brussels gang, Jagdish Kumar, 23, masterminded the business for at least three years. He was jailed for 10 years, one of the longest sentences ever handed out for people smuggling by a Belgian court.
Details emerged at the trials of Kumar, and 21 other Indians convicted alongside him, of a sophisticated, well-organised, and extremely vicious organisation.
"People often think this is a fairly clean business, without victims," Mr de Wolf said. "It is not. We know of 10 stabbings in the lorry parks connected to this gang, and there were almost certainly more."
At least two of the immigrants died as the gang tried to smuggle them into Britain - one asphyxiated in the back of a lorry which never got beyond Calais, another was knifed by a rival gang.
When detectives launched raids to arrest the gang they were astonished to find a total of 164 illegal immigrants in safe houses across Brussels, all waiting to be smuggled. A further 50 were in a building used as a Sikh temple in the suburb of Vilvoorde.
Kumar admitted to being involved in smuggling 150 individuals, but detectives believe the true number was much higher.
"We estimated that 150 Indians per night were being sneaked into lorries by this gang and others to go to England," said Chief Inspector Patrick Van Bossuyt, the detective who was in charge of the investigation. "Some would have been found and arrested, but most probably got across. And the smuggling is still going on today."
Indians who wanted to work illegally in Britain contacted travel agents working for Kumar's gang in the Punjab, who arranged for them to fly to Moscow with forged visas. From there they came to Belgium by land, crossing borders illegally on a tortuous route through Ukraine, Hungary, Slovenia, and down to Italy, where some laboured in market gardens for a time, paying off part of their "fare".
"Britain remains a destination of choice, and India has many takers," Judge David Moeremans told the Brussels court when he sentenced the gang.
In Brussels, the immigrants would live in of the flats the gang used - one was so cramped they were forced to sleep in the sitting position.
Heidi De Pauw, a social worker who helped some of those discovered in the police raids, said: "To the traffickers, the immigrants are not human beings. They have to pay a lot of money, they are locked up for days with little food, and often they have to work illegally.
"If anyone complains about their papers, or how much they have to pay, violence is used against them."
She said that Britain was the lure. "They speak English, they have family there, and they think it is the land of milk and honey where they will earn a lot of money. When they leave India, they have no idea how dangerous or unpleasant the journey is going to be."
For the last stage of their journey, the Punjabis would either walk or take a tram to lorry parks on the busy E40 motorway, just outside Brussels, where many vehicles make a last stop before the last stage of their journey to Britain.
Court documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph reveal that for this final stage of the journey there were two "classes" of travel. They were charged €5,000 to be placed on a lorry with a driver who was working for the gang, where the chance of success was higher.
Or they would pay €1,500 to be sneaked on to a truck - meaning a higher risk of discovery and the danger that they might become trapped and eventually suffocate.
To gain access to the trucks, Kumar had to pay a second gang of notoriously violent Iraqi Kurds who "controlled" the lorry parks. Detectives found that he paid the Kurds around €8,000 per month for access, paying a further €500 per head for the Kurds to smuggle each immigrant into the backs of lorries.
Disputes between the Indian gang and the Kurds were common, and usually settled by knife fights.
Kumar is believed to have sent hundreds of thousands of euros back to Punjab, though police are still not sure exactly where his family home was.
Kumar's business was so complicated that detectives took two years to disentangle all the financial relationships between the network of Punjabis, many of whom had themselves been illegal immigrants before becoming traffickers. The families of immigrants in India paid the gang thousands of euros for forged documents.
Some of the illegal immigrants were persuaded to give evidence against the gang and are currently living under protection in Belgium. They were too afraid to speak to The Sunday Telegraph.
Belgian authorities believe the convictions were a major blow against people smuggling gangs.
But the more than 200 illegal immigrants who were seized in the dawn police raids were not put off for long. After being briefly detained they were released with a written order to leave Belgium within five days, but Chf Insp Van Bossuyt doubted they would return home. "They don't have passports, so the Indian government won't take them. I should think they are all in England now."
Extraordinarily, Kumar is also now a free man too. A few months after his conviction, his lawyers persuaded the court to release him on appeal, and he returned to India.
"It is good that this violent gang of smugglers has been sent to jail," said Ms De Pauw. "But we will need many more such successes to stop human trafficking."

[jinhwangtikatang]

How about this, back in June 2000 58 bodies found in the back of a lorry, from Zebrugge also http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/796791.stm

[Kelseecat65]