(UTV | COLOMBO) – Twenty-six people have been arrested in Belgium and France in an operation prompted by the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a lorry in the UK in 2019.
A UK report found the migrants all died from asphyxia and hypothermia.
Thirteen people, including Moroccans and Vietnamese, were held in Brussels and 13 more in Paris, authorities say.
Belgian prosecutors said the suspects had probably “transported up to several dozen people every day for several months”.
The smuggling network, they said, was suspected of having made the October 2019 trip possible.