Essex lorry deaths – 39 migrants found dead 'were Chinese nationals' as police continue to quiz driver

THIRTY-nine migrants found dead in the back of a lorry in Essex were all Chinese nationals, it has been reported.

Dad-to-be Maurice 'Mo'  Robinson, 25, is being quizzed on suspicion of murder after he picked the trailer packed with bodies up from Purfleet in Essex yesterday.

The grisly discovery is Britain's biggest-ever mass murder probes after the bodies were found on an industrial estate in Grays yesterday morning.

ITV News has reported all the 39 victims – including a teenager – are from China. Essex Police have not yet identified the nationality of those in the lorry.

The horror has chilling echoes of 2000, when 58 Chinese stowaways died in a lorry travelling by ferry from Belgium to Britain.

In both tragedies, the victims had come from Zeebrugge in to Purfleet port in Essex.

Robinson, who brands the lorry "The Polar Express" on social media, had picked up the trailer after it arrived from Zeebrugge, Belgium at 12.30am yesterday.

Cops investigating the deaths last night swooped on two homes in County Armagh, which are believed to be related to Essex Police's murder probe into Robinson.

Robinson, who has been a HGV driver for more than five years,  doesn't own the lorry.

The lorry was registered in Varna, Bulgaria, in 2017 by an Irish company but has not returned to Bulgaria since then.

IRISH SMUGGLING GANGS

Varna is notorious for cigarette and fuel smuggling and has known links to Irish Republican gangs, The Telegraph reports.

Detectives from the National Crime Agency are now investigating whether an Irish people smuggling gang with links to Bulgaria was behind the horror.

The organisation last year warned smugglers were “abusing” the Ireland-UK border.

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