A court sentenced a Dutch truck driver to four years in prison for attempting to smuggle 47 undocumented people onto a ferry bound for England, the NL Times reported on May 26.
According to the publication, a 33-year-old man from Gemert-Bakel was found guilty of human trafficking. The sentence corresponds to what was recommended by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (POS).
Dutch authorities stopped the man’s truck on December 5, 2023 at a border checkpoint as he headed to catch a ferry to England. A search of the truck found 47 people (men, women and children) hiding in the trailer among the vintage cars. These were mainly refugees from Iraq, Türkiye, Vietnam and Albania.
It is observed that the truck’s canvas was closed with hooks that could only be accessed from the outside. During the trial, the prosecutor observed that the people were locked in the truck without protection from the cargo and without the possibility of escape.
Let us remember that in 2019, 39 Vietnamese suffocated in the back of a refrigerated truck that was being transported by ferry from Belgium to the United Kingdom.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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