Police found bloody handprints on freezing 'coffin' where 39 migrants died

The 39 migrants who died after being locked in a freezing container en-route to the UK left 'bloody handprints' on the inside of the doors and walls of the 'coffin' where their bodies were found, it was revealed last night.

It is grim evidence of the victims' desperate final moments while locked inside the container that was loaded onto a ferry in Zeebrugge in Belgium in a people smuggling operation, before the shocking discovery at an Essex port on Wednesday.

Sources have now claimed that the migrants, six of whom were thought to have been Vietnamese, were naked or had minimal clothing when they were found in the container on Wednesday in Purfleet, Essex.

It is also believed that the Vietnamese migrants are all from the Can Loc district in northern Vietnam and had been 'banging on the doors' for help and had 'foam coming from their mouths' when found.

The latest revelation comes as a 48-year-old man from Northern Ireland was arrested at Stansted Airport on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and suspicion of manslaughter.

Vietnamese woman Pham Thi Tra My sent her mother a series of harrowing messages telling her she 'loved her' and was 'dying because she couldn't breathe.'

Her family claim the 26-year-old paid people smugglers £30,000 to travel to the UK via China 'in search of a better life.'

Police and forensic officers investigate a lorry in which 39 bodies were discovered in the trailer on Wednesday. Sources have now claimed that bloodied hand marks were found inside

Pham Thi Tra My (left) had texted her mother whilst taking the journey to the UK. The family of Nguyen Dinh Luong (right) are also concerned for his safety

Forensic officers are pictured above doing a full sweep of the lorry which had been carrying the migrants across the world

The Vietnamese migrants are all thought to have travelled from the same district, the Can Loc district, which is pictured right. In text messages sent at 10.28pm GMT on Tuesday, Pham Thi Tra told her mother, 'I love you so much...I'm sorry.' Pictured left, the screenshot of Tra My's last text

Since Wednesday four people have been arrested in connection with the death of the 39 migrants. Police had initially believed they had come from China

Pham's family are believed to be one of ten that have come forward saying that they feared their relatives were missing after the discovery in Essex.

A human rights worker in Vietnam, who was spoken with her family, has revealed that she made the perilous journey because her family was in debt and she was desperately trying to help them.

'She had just returned from Japan where she was working to try and pay off the debt. And that was not enough and so she looked for a better future,' she told the BBC.

Asking to remain anonymous, the human rights worker continued: 'For this girl it is very sad that she took the risk because she was dealing with debt that was created by another man in the family.

'And I also learnt that the service that she was using was called 'very important service' and so it is like a business class ticket on the lorry and with that she had to pay double or three times the price of the cheap ticket.'

At least six of those found in the container may have been Vietnamese and new reports from the BBC now claim that a 20-year-old man is also feared to be one of the victims.

Relatives of Nguyen Dinh Luong told the broadcaster that he may be one of those found in the container. His family claimed they received urgent messages from two phones relating to Nguyen.

Who has been arrested so far? As police in the UK continue their investigations into the 39 migrants who lost their lives trying to enter the country, we keep track of who has been arrested so far. Lorry driver Maurice Mo Robinson: Arrested on suspicion of murder, police also given extra time to quiz the 25-year-old. Mo Robinson is the truck driver arrested after 39 people were found dead in the back of a lorry he was driving Joanna Maher, 38, and her husband Thomas, also 38: The Warrington couple who previously told MailOnline they had sold the container are understood to have been held on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter. Mrs Maher, a mother-of-three, pictured with her trucker boss husband Thomas, told MailOnline that she sold the lorry involved in the deaths of 39 migrants to an Irish haulage firm 13 months ago 48-year-old man from Northern Ireland: The latest arrest took place at Stansted Airport. The identity of the man has not yet been revealed, but police said he has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and suspicion of manslaughter.

His father Nguyen Dinh Gia said his son told him two weeks ago he planned to travel to Britain from France, where he had been living illegally since 2018.

He said he would pay 11,000 pounds ($14,000) for the journey.

But Gia got a call several days ago from a Vietnamese man saying 'Please have some sympathy, something unexpected happened,' he told AFP.

'I fell to the ground when I heard that,' Gia told AFP.

'It seemed that he was in the truck with the accident, all of them dead,' he added.

His father told The Associated Press he had not been able to reach him since last week. He had said he would join a group in Paris that was trying to reach England.

'He often called home but I haven't been able to reach him since the last time we talked last week,' Nguyen Dinh Gia said. 'I told him that he could go to anywhere he wants as long as it's safe. He shouldn't be worry about money, I'll take care of it.'

He said his son left home in central Ha Tinh province to work in Russia in 2017, then on to Ukraine. In April 2018, he arrived in Germany then traveled to France. He told his family that he wanted to go to the U.K.

Luong's older brother, Pham Dinh Hai, said that Luong had a tattoo of praying hands on a cross on his right shoulder. The family said they shared the information with local authorities.

This is while a third Vietnamese family said a 19-year-old woman was missing after calling relatives at 6.20am on Tuesday to say she was getting into a container and was turning her phone off.

Vietnam's embassy in London said it had received requests from Vietnamese families asking for help in finding out whether their relatives were among the victims found dead in the back of the truck.

Last night, sources told the Mirror that emergency teams responding to the call from driver Maurice 'Mo' Robinson found hand prints on the doors of the container.

'When the door of the container was opened, first responders were shocked to see dozens of dead bodies piled on top of one another.

'The bodies closest to the doors had foam coming from their mouths and were in the early stages of rigor mortis.

'There were bloody handprints all along the inside of the lorry door where they must have been banging for help.'

The area the Vietnamese migrants are thought to have hailed from has suffered hardship in recent years following an environmental disaster in 2016.

The region had relied on fishing as a main source of income and a chemical spill wiped out around 125 miles of coastlines. Since then there has been a rise in migration in the area, with many moving away to find work.

As details of the migrant's perilous journey continue to emerge, a French state prosecutor in Boulogne-sur-Mer has told The Times of how migrants were sometimes lured into such lorries not realising how cold it would become inside.

He said that smugglers persuaded migrants to enter by setting the temperature at minus 4C 'because no one would get in at minus 20C. They tell these people: 'Look, it's not that cold, all you need to do is to wrap up warmly'. But when they get to the port they turn the temperature to minus 20C because they know that police officers would find it suspicious if they saw a refrigerated lorry with a temperature of minus 4C.'

Pham Thi Tra My sent her mother a series of harrowing text messages telling her she 'couldn't breathe' whilst in the container

Her family said 26-year-old Tra My paid £30,000 to travel to the UK via China 'in search of a better life' for herself

The 39 desperate stowaway migrants were locked up in the trailer (above). It is unclear how long they had been in there for but it is believed to be at least 15 hours

As well as the arrest at Stansted, a husband and wife, thought to be the last known owners of the lorry, were arrested on Friday after police swooped on their Cheshire home, three days into the biggest murder investigation in Britain since 7/7.

Joanna Maher, 38, and her husband Thomas, also 38, from Warrington, are understood to have been held on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter.

Pham Thi Tra's last text messages were sent at 10.28pm BST on Tuesday - two hours before the truck reached the UK, as it was en route from Belgium.

Pham Thi Tra told her mother: 'I'm sorry Mum. My journey abroad hasn't succeeded. Mum, I love you so much. I'm dying because I can't breathe.'

Tra My's brother told the BBC on Friday that his sister had told them not to contact her because 'the organisers' did not allow her to receive calls.

First pictures of haulage boss and his wife arrested on 39 counts of manslaughter over Essex death truck tragedy - after it emerged she was lorry's previous owner Thomas Maher and his wife Joanne were arrested at 4am The husband and wife named by MailOnline as the last known owners of the lorry carrying 39 migrants who froze to death were arrested yesterday after police swooped on their £400,000 Cheshire home. Joanna Maher, 38, and her husband Thomas, also 38, from Warrington, are understood to have been held on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter. The couple told MailOnline last night they sold the lorry cab a year ago to a company in Ireland - but police officers investigating the tragedy raided their property yesterday before searching the couple's beauty salon around the corner, New Hair Don't Care. The refrigerated trailer carrying the 39 frozen trafficking victims is believed to be owned by a rental firm in Dublin. A Cheshire Police patrol car arrived at the Irish couple's four-bedroom house at 7am this morning before up to a dozen police officers went inside at around Midday - just before the arrests were announced. The pair were not seen yesterday.

He said she flew to China from her home in Can Lộc, a rural district of Hà Tĩnh Province in Vietnam, then left for France and initially attempted to cross the border into the UK on October 19, but 'got caught' and turned back.

Tra My is thought be among the eight women and 31 men who were discovered inside the 'metal coffin' lorry container on Wednesday morning. The Vietnamese families of a 26-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman have also contacted the BBC raising fears they could be among those dead.

Bernie Gravett, a former Metropolitan police officer who now advises the EU on human trafficking, said families trying to help their loved ones travel abroad would pay large sums of money to smugglers.

He told BBC Breakfast: 'In Vietnam it is assessed at 20 to 30,000 US dollars, from China it's 40 to 50,000 US dollars.'

Mr Gravett said identifying the victims found in Essex would be a hard and long process due to the possible use of false identification documents and the numbers of people travelling to Europe.

He said: 'It's a cruel stage for the families, because hundreds if not thousands are currently on those routes, so I appreciate we are getting calls from Vietnam saying my loved one is missing and my loved one may be on that lorry but they could be on another lorry.

'These lorries are coming through on a weekly basis, we have just found one, others get through undetected and the victims then go on to be exploited in the UK.'

Mr Gravett added: 'Victims will be given fake documents, so with Chinese generally they are given Korean documents or other documents depending on the country of destination.

'Most often they are stripped of all documentation so that when they get to the UK then documents are provided relating to this country.'

Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese Ambassador to the UK, said in a tweet: 'Latest report from the Minister-Counsellor of my Embassy: Essex police emphasised they are still verifying the identity of the 39 deceased.

'We are waiting for the police to identify the victims. This is a number one priority.'

The report has emerged from Human Rights Space, a civic network based in Vietnam, but there has not yet been any further verification of its claims, or those of her brother.

Hoa Nghiem from HRS said: 'It was told on the news that all 39 people were Chinese but Tra My's family is trying to verify if their daughter was among them as the last dying text from her was coincidentally in time.

'Our contact is getting more alerts that there could be more Vietnamese people in the truck.'

Police previously said the eight women and 31 men were all believed to be Chinese nationals, but claims have now surfaced online that some may have been from Vietnam.

The Vietnamese Embassy in London confirmed it has contacted police in regard to Tra My. A spokesman for the embassy said they had been contacted by a family in Vietnam which claimed their daughter had been missing 'since the lorry was found'.

The map above shows the perilous 5,000 mile journey the 39 migrants would have taken to get to the UK having paid 'snakehead' gangsters £20,000 for the privilege

Private Ambulances arriving at Tilbury Port to remove the remaining victims from the container on Friday morning

Hunt for second lorry driver who was caught on CCTV dropping off container in Belgium with 39 doomed migrants Police in Belgium have obtained CCTV footage of the haulier who transported the 39 migrants in a freezing container to the UK, after he was filmed ten times at the Zeebrugge site. Cameras at the port terminal in Belgium snapped the vehicle as it went through the security port terminal, carrying 31 men and eight women. The terminal is managed by Luxembourg-based company C.RO which is believed to have handed footage to police - a development which could reveal who transported the migrants on the continental part of their ill-fated journey. According to The Times, police are now focusing their attentions on the driver who delivered the container to the Belgium port and the CCTV footage may be able to identify them. Dutch language newspaper Het Nieuwsblad quoted one source, thought to have been a Belgium official as saying: 'We hope to catch him soon. His truck was filmed ten times at the port site'. The driver who delivered the unit is thought to have dismissed normal protocol and failed to identify himself, or provide a waybill upon arrival at the port. It raises questions about the security of ports across Europe, as the UK are believed to have sent equipment to terminals such as Zeebrugge in order to thwart people smuggling.

The spokesman said: 'We have contacted Essex Police and we are waiting for an answer.'

The couple told MailOnline that they sold the lorry cab a year ago to a company in Ireland - but police officers investigating the tragedy raided their property yesterday. The refrigerated trailer carrying the 39 frozen trafficking victims is believed to be owned by a rental firm in Dublin.

A Cheshire Police patrol car arrived at the Irish couple's house at 7am on Thursday before up to a dozen police officers went inside at around Midday - just before the arrests were announced. The pair have not been seen.

Earlier this week Mrs Maher told MailOnline: 'It's the cab - my name was down as owning it.

'We did own it but sold it 13 months ago', adding they sold it to a company in County Monaghan, close to where truck driver Maurice 'Mo' Robinson, 25, lives.

Police are also questioning the Northern Irish trucker for the third day with a decision on whether to charge him with murder or release him.

An Essex Police spokesman said: 'We have carried out warrants in Cheshire as part of the investigation into 39 bodies being discovered in a lorry trailer in Grays.

'As a result, a 38-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman from Warrington have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter. A 25-year-old man, the driver of the lorry, remains in custody on suspicion of murder'.

The container carrying migrants had previously criss-crossed the Channel via refugee hotspots in the week before it arrived in Britain with 39 frozen bodies inside, perhaps for several days, it was revealed yesterday.

Yesterday their bodies were moved by private ambulance from Tilbury docks to Chelmsford mortuary for post-examinations that will run into next week.

This harrowing image shows a fleet of private ambulances arriving at Tilbury Docks to take away the victims on Friday

Final journey: How the 39 tragic migrants ended up in Purfleet, Essex, dead in the back of a refrigerated biscuit lorry

The industrial estate where the 39 migrants were found frozen to death in the back of a lorry remains sealed off on Friday as police questioned the driver for a third day

Police at the Warrington home of Joanna Maher, 38, and her husband Thomas, also 38, yesterday where the couple are understood to have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter

Police the home of Joanna and Thomas Maher who were the last named owners of the lorry which was found containing 39 migrants

Robinson arrived in the UK at the weekend after a ferry from Dublin to Holyhead. He picked up the trailer, which had been shipped from Zeebrugge to Purfleet. Minutes later, he pulled into the Essex industrial estate and the alarm was raised

Two houses have been raided by police in Northern Ireland - one belonging to the lorry driver in Markethill and the other belonging to his parents in Laurelvale, both Co Armagh. A third house in Armagh City has also been raided

Mastermind in misery: Brutal rise and fall of 'Snakehead' gang leader 'Sister Ping' - as it emerges Triad-linked mob use Chinese version of TINDER to lure desperate families to UK with offers of '100% safe travel' for '£20,000 fee' Snakeshead kingpin, Cheng Chui Ping, also known as 'Sister Ping', who ran the world's largest people smuggling network for 20 years until her death in a US jail By Tracy You and Martin Robinson The trafficking gang believed to have smuggled the tragic 39 Asian migrants into Britain was built by a ruthless Chinese matriarch known as the 'Mother of all Snakeheads' who made millions from trafficking during a 20-year reign of terror. Gangland boss Sister Ping died in a Texas prison in 2014 where she was serving 35 years for building the world's most sophisticated network of people smugglers who brought up to 200,000 illegal immigrants into America alone. At her New York trial in 2005 she was described as 'evil incarnate' who had made a fortune moving generations of Chinese people around the world for £20,000 since the early 1980s. This debt would either be paid back in wages from menial work in the West - or relatives back in the Chinese province of Fujian, known as the country's 'cradle of human smuggling', would be forced at gunpoint to take out a loan from Sister Ping's own sharks. Police eventually traced Sister Ping to China Town in New York and put her in the dock for people smuggling. But despite her incarceration and death her snakehead gang is still going strong - although its new leader is not yet known. Without her the gang is moving with the times and using social media apps including China's equivalent to Tinder, MoMo, as well as popular messaging app WeChat, promising '100 per cent safe travel'. The south-eastern province of Fujian in China has a long histories of sending migrants abroad for cash Traffickers are using social media apps including China's equivalent to Tinder, MoMo (pictured), as well as popular messaging app WeChat Adverts with attractive slogans such as 'speedy passage of border checks! Pay upon arrival!' are circulating on apps. People dreaming of a new life away from China pay an online deposit as low as 5,000 yuan (£550) before being crammed into boats or containers for a long, dark and risky journey, local media reported. Chinese, particularly those with lower education levels, continue to be drawn to Europe and North America by the promise of much higher wages than they can earn at home, despite the considerable risks involved. The victims would flee home hoping for a better life in the UK - but their journey to Britain would be miserable and dangerous, spending up to a month in the back of lorries in dangerous and squalid conditions. Most would be flown from China to Serbia and then transported by road through Hungary, Austria, France before a boat to Britain from Belgium or Holland. Mike Gradwell, a former Lancashire Police detective superintendent who worked on the probe into the Morecambe Bay cockling tragedy in which 23 Chinese illegal immigrants drowned, told BBC Breakfast that those in the trailer were most likely trafficked by Snakehead gangs. He said: 'These are criminal travel agents really - you go to a Snakehead to say you want to be trafficked to an economic opportunity and usually you'll borrow quite a significant amount of money.' He said relatives were likely to have been in contact with those being trafficked, who may have been carrying phones which could be used by police to help identify them. Lisa Yam, a lawyer specialising in Chinese immigration, told the programme: 'We find it is quite difficult to believe why we still have so many Chinese that choose to come into the country (like this).'

'The migrant minibuses wait there all night': How quiet Essex port at centre of death truck tragedy 'comes alive at night' as ruthless traffickers exchange human cargo under cover of darkness

People-smuggling operations are so rife at the port where 39 migrants were found dead this week that there is said to be a 'migrant minibus service'.

Former port security guard Gary Lilley, 61, has described how Purfleet on the River Thames in Essex 'comes alive at night' with the arrival of trafficked migrants.

Mr Lilley, who lives opposite the port where he worked for six weeks in 2012, also claimed minibuses meet lorries to take away the migrants following their arrival.

Lorries are pictured outside the Purfleet Thames Terminal in Essex on Wednesday

An aerial view of Purfleet Port (file image) where 39 migrants were found dead this week. Police have now gone back on original claims that the migrants were Chinese

He told The Times that there is a 'notorious' lay-by near the port where migrants ditch their documents so UK authorities don't know where to repatriate them to.

He added: 'Minibuses wait there at night for them to arrive. Last summer during the heatwave I gave water bottles to two five-year-old girls as they looked desperate.

'They were standing by the side of the road in a group of about 15. At the lay-by you see the lorries pull up and the migrants pop their heads out to see if it's safe.

'On many occasions I've seen minibuses pull up and they jump in and are driven off. It's so organised.'

Purfleet in Essex is said to 'come alive at night' with the arrival of trafficked migrants

Minibuses are said to meet lorries to take away the migrants following their arrival at Purfleet

Police drive the lorry along a road from the scene at Waterglade Industrial Park on Wednesday

Smugglers put on 'mini bus service' to deal with demand in Purfleet Last night it was revealed that the Thames port where the migrants were found 'comes alive at night' with new arrivals. A former security guard told The Times that smuggling is so well organised in the area that mini buses meet the migrants and take them away. Gary Lilley worked at the port for around six weeks as a security guard seven years ago. He said: 'The port comes alive at around 2am. I've seen groups of migrants walking out the front door of the port with carrier bags. 'When there's a group of them a few security guards on minimum wage aren't going to stop them. They are all ages, babes in arms and five-year-old girls. 'Minibuses wait there at night for them to arrive. Last summer during the heatwave I gave water bottles to two five-year-old girls as they looked desperate.'

Mr Lilley said security is 'lax' at the port, with an X-ray scanner on a customs and excise lorry arriving once every two months for a day to scan vehicles arriving.

The local resident, who has lived in the area for 30 years, said the deaths were 'heartbreaking' and left him upset - but he was not surprised by what happened.

It follows the National Crime Agency warning in 2016 that people-smugglers were switching to Purfleet because it was 'less busy' than other UK entry points.

The incident on Wednesday has raised questions about border checks and whether the authorities have done enough to tackle trafficking gangs.

This May the NCA warned that Belgian ports such as Zeebrugge – from where the contained travelled to Purfleet - were becoming people-smuggling hotspots.

An earlier report from the Border Force also said Zeebrugge was a key concern.

Asked about security at Purfleet, a Home Office spokesman said this week: 'I cannot comment on the specific deployment of Border Force staff and security technology.'

Last night, police began moving the bodies found in the refrigerated trailer attached to a lorry as a 25-year-old man remains in custody on suspicion of murder.