How surge in Vietnamese migrants smuggled in on small boats is fuelling Britain’s cannabis and prostitution industries
SWELTERING and gasping for breath, Vietnamese parents Loc and Van held hands as they slowly suffocated to death inside a cross-Channel lorry trailer.
Touted as a VIP service, the truck on a UK-bound ferry instead became a grisly tomb for the pair and 37 others from the south east Asian nation.
The 2019 tragedy was of such grim proportions that even the most ruthless and cold-hearted people traffickers might have questioned their deadly trade.
Yet this week it emerged more migrants from Vietnam have made the perilous journey across the Channel in small boats this year than from any other country.
A makeshift camp of around 50 from that nation built up this month amid the squalor of the so-called New Jungle, near Dunkirk in France.
Border Force says some of the flimsy dinghies crossing the Channel have as many as 20 Vietnamese on board. Most arrivals are women, which bucks the trend of other nationalities, three quarters of whom are men.
Downing Street has blamed the Vietnamese migrant surge for contributing to the record numbers crossing the Channel this year.
Already, 6,265 have made the treacherous voyage — up 28 per cent on the same time in 2023.
And the “increasing number of Vietnamese” was this week cited by the Prime Minister’s official spokesman as a reason why the Rwanda Bill needs to become law.
The spokesman added that the controversial legislation would “save the lives of those being exploited by people-smuggling gangs”.
‘We have no choice’
So why has Vietnam — 6,200 miles from Britain’s shores — become a more popular origin nation for migrants than even Afghanistan, Iraq or Iran?
With idyllic beaches, ancient villages and picturesque paddyfield scenery, it is a sought-after destination for British holidaymakers.
And it is tipped to be Asia’s next tiger economy, with growth of six per cent predicted this year.
Apple assembles iPads and AirPods there, while Nike, Puma and Vans trainers are also made in the developing nation.
Yet many in Vietnam remain trapped in grinding poverty and are susceptible to wild promises made by people smugglers of the riches to be found in the UK.
These networks do not care about the safety or security of those they transport. They seek to exploit them for profit, charging them thousands of pounds
Dan Barcroft, National Crime Agency
Dan Barcroft, from Britain’s National Crime Agency, revealed to The Sun that Vietnamese migrants “largely come to the UK for economic reasons”.
The Organised Immigration Crime Threat lead added that the “vast majority” are “facilitated by organised criminals” when crossing into Britain.
They often end up working in cannabis farms, nail bars or the sex industry, with their extortionate smuggling fee paid by debt bondage.
The officer added: “These networks do not care about the safety or security of those they transport. They seek to exploit them for profit, charging them thousands of pounds.”
And yet the pull factor for migrants remains strong, even for those with relatives who suffocated in the 2019 lorry disaster in Essex.
In September 2023, ITV News interviewed a Vietnamese woman whose brother died in the truck container, yet her husband was planning to cross the Channel by dinghy.
The family had borrowed £20,000 to pay the smugglers for her sibling’s fatal journey and the debt had to be repaid. The woman said: “Of course I’m scared for my husband, but we have no choice.”
Shown an image of a crammed and rickety cross-Channel dinghy, her husband said he knew the risks.
“But if I stay here, the debt will always haunt my family, be inherited by my children, and we will all stay poor for ever,” he said. “
I wish there was a safe, legal way. So if the boats are the only option, I will get in.”
If it were a legitimate business it would be one of the best in the world. You’re dealing with some of the most sophisticated, clever and nimble business people around
Mimi Vu, modern slavery expert
Vietnam-based Mimi Vu, an anti-trafficking and modern slavery expert, says local agents charge as much as £43,000 for people to reach the UK.
Average earnings in Vietnam are the equivalent of £3,000 a year. The campaigner told me: “We’re dealing with a transnational organised crime network.
“It specialises in drug production, counterfeit goods, forced prostitution, sweatshops, slave labour, you name it.
“If it were a legitimate business it would be one of the best in the world. You’re dealing with some of the most sophisticated, clever and nimble business people around.”
Mimi says exploitation of workers begins in their home villages.
Agents sell dreams of wages that can be earned abroad and entice workers to take out vast loans for their passage to Europe. Mimi said interest rates on the loans can hit “700 to 1,000 per cent”.
Some reach countries such as Poland or Hungary and discover their salaries aren’t large enough to meet their debt repayments.
They are then enticed to the UK with the promise of earning more in cannabis farms and nail bars.
Their debt bondage leaves many toiling as modern-day slaves.
Britain’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Eleanor Lyons, told The Sun: “Last year there was a 29 per cent increase in the number of Vietnamese individuals identified as potential victims of modern slavery.
“This rise is largely driven from an increase in Vietnamese women being identified as victims of labour exploitation and sexual exploitation. This is unacceptable and more must be done to protect victims.”
Much of the UK’s cannabis crop is grown in Vietnamese-run farms dotted around the streets and industrial units of Britain.
In January, Vietnamese national Dan Dang, 44, was sentenced to eight months behind bars after acting as a “gardener” at a cannabis farm on a Swansea housing estate.
‘Shrouded in secrecy’
The city’s crown court heard he paid people smugglers £35,000 to traffic him into the UK.
Dang, who arrived with the intention of working in restaurants, claimed gangsters running the weed operation had threatened to kill his family if he refused to work for them.
Last month, Vuong Nguyen from Vietnam was caged for five years after being found tending more than a thousand cannabis plants worth more than £400,000.
The 47-year-old was already on police bail for allegedly being involved with a cannabis farm in Ilford, Essex, before he was discovered with the marijuana plants in Halifax, West Yorks.
He admitted two charges of production of cannabis and is set to be deported back to Vietnam.
Channel crossings by Vietnamese migrants more than doubled last year, from 505 in 2022 to 1,323.
The Home Office was unable to give figures on the numbers arriving so far this year or the reasons for the surge.
The NCA says it is working with Vietnamese authorities to “target, disrupt and dismantle” Vietnamese smuggling networks.
It points to successes including the jailing of the ringleader behind the Essex lorry smuggling tragedy that left 39 dead. Vietnamese national Vo Van Hong was caged for 15 years by a Belgian court in 2022.
The NCA also aided Essex police investigations that saw seven people given prison terms totalling more than 92 years in January 2021.
The heart-rending stories of those who perished, including ten teenagers, provide a glimpse into the brutal trade in human beings that is usually shrouded in secrecy.
Often their migration was in stages. Many had followed that path to nations including Russia and Poland before being lured on the promise of better wages to the UK.
By October 2019, they had met in Paris for their onward journey to Britain.
Arriving by taxi in Bierne, close to France’s Channel coast, they clambered inside a lorry trailer. The truck boarded the MV Clementine ferry in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, bound for Purfleet-on-Thames in Essex.
Maybe going to die in the container, can’t breathe any more dear
Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, 28, died in lorry in Essex tragedy
During the voyage the temperature inside the trailer rose to 38.5C, starving the stowaways of oxygen.
They stripped to their underwear in the sweltering heat and tried to smash their way out of the trailer’s roof with a metal post.
When driver Maurice Robinson pulled the truck over and yanked open the doors in a deserted Essex industrial estate, he was greeted by the contorted bodies of all 39 of his passengers.
The Northern Irishman is now serving 13 years and four months for his part in the catastrophe.
Among the dead were Tran Hai Loc and Nguyen Thi Van — the married couple who had held hands as their lives ebbed away.
Both 35, they had left two children behind in Vietnam.
Fellow passenger Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, 28, had desperately typed in the phone message: “Maybe going to die in the container, can’t breathe any more dear.”
Gulping for air as the oxygen dwindled, the pitiful young woman never sent her final text. Little wonder, then, that Home Secretary James Cleverly and Vietnamese counterpart General To Lam agreed a set of measures this week to combat people trafficking.
It will see increased intelligence sharing, efforts to stamp out visa abuse and a continuing social media campaign in Vietnam which highlights the dangers of reaching Britain by small boat.
Meanwhile, the Government’s flagship Rwanda Bill — which it insist will help “stop the boats” — was delayed again on Wednesday after the House of Lords insisted on amendments.
On Sunday, 534 migrants crossed the Channel in ten dinghies, the highest in a single day this year.
A trade in human misery which Britain appears to be incapable of stemming.
