Several days after 39 bodies were found in a parked truck in the county of Essex, the Vietnamese police were involved in the investigation. Officials from the Ministry of Public Security had taken hair and blood samples from people who might be related to the victims, Reuters reported.
The background of the action was that the British investigators now suspect that all or at least many of them were Vietnamese, after initially assuming that the dead were Chinese.
Shortly after the finding of the bodies was announced on Wednesday, several Vietnamese families had expressed concern that they could be relatives of them. The family of 26-year-old Pham Tra My, for example, told the BBC that the young woman sent them a message on Tuesday night saying, "I'm dying, I can not breathe." The bodies had been discovered early Wednesday morning.
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Mortuary in Essex: Departure from the industrial areaThe British police meanwhile suspect that the truck found may be part of a "larger conspiracy". Accordingly, there are indications that the car drove in convoy with two others. Overall, according to the "BBC" around 100 people were smuggled to Britain with the three vehicles.
The British police have already arrested four suspects, including the driver of the truck in which the bodies had been found. A man arrested by the Irish police on Saturday for a suspected crime in Ireland was also interviewed by the investigators in connection with the crime.
The suspects are accused of trafficking and manslaughter or murder. According to police, three of them, however, were released on bail on Sunday. According to this, the man arrested in Ireland and a 38-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man from Warrington, northern England, have to report to the police again on 11 and 13 November respectively.
The Essex police refer to the case as the largest murder investigation in their history.