UK truck deaths: Vietnam arrests man making illegal immigrant profiles

By Duc Hung February 24, 2020 | 06:28 am PT

Nguyen Xuan Trieu, 24, at a police station in Ha Tinh Province, central Vietnam, February 24, 2020. Photo courtesy of Ha Tinh Police.

Police investigating the death of 39 Vietnamese citizens in the UK truck tragedy have arrested a man for creating illegal immigration profiles.

Ha Tinh Police said Monday that Nguyen Xuan Trieu, 24, is suspected to have worked with seven others to create immigration profiles for Vietnamese people from many localities to work illegally in the U.K. and Europe.

In the same case, police from the central province had arrested six people last Thursday, saying one suspect was still at large and internationally wanted.

Last November, the investigation had led the police to accuse Trieu of making fake profiles for 10 people from Ha Tinh who ended up dead in a refrigerated container truck in the U.K.

They and 28 other Vietnamese succumbed to hypoxia and hyperthermia inside the truck used to smuggle them from France to the U.K. Their bodies were found in Essex County, northeast of London, on October 24 last year. The two youngest victims were 15 and the oldest 44.

Besides 10 victims from Ha Tinh, 21 of the deceased were from neighboring Nghe An, and the rest from Quang Binh, Thua Thien-Hue, Hai Duong and Hai Phong.

Their remains were returned to Vietnam last November.