Bulgarian Driver Arrested for Migrant Stowaways on his Truck

A Bulgarian truck driver was recently arrested in Western Europe after migrants were found hiding in the trailer of his truck. The video below briefly explains the process by which stowaways are inserted into the cargo compartments of trucks.

Tanya T., who translated the video for subtitles, sends this longer summary of the incident:

The incident happened somewhere in the border region between Luxemburg and Belgium, and because of that there was police control at petrol stations. The driver was transporting goods from Lille (France), to Belgium. He stopped at a station and the migrants began to bang so that the he would hear them and open the door (they probably thought they had arrived). The police heard them, and the driver was arrested.

In the longer video (this one was used for the 7pm news) his colleagues say there are organized groups that keep watch and put migrants in the trucks during the obligatory rest time, then close the doors and lock them.

The drivers can get away without a fine and a prison sentence only if they somehow notice them and call the police right away, or if another driver warns them; otherwise they are automatically considered guilty.

The owner says there have been many such cases in his firm, and tells about one in which a hand shows from the canvas of the truck and waves at the driver to stop. He called the police.

On other occasions the locking mechanisms of some of his trucks have been sprayed with liquid nitrogen and then broken, and then the doors have been closed with a type of brace he says everybody can buy and are frequently used for the trucks once the original mechanism breaks.

Another driver tells about the practice of putting logs and stones on the road to stop the trucks, and then the canvas is cut from the side or through the roof. He says what happened to his arrested colleague has happened to him as well — five migrants had entered his truck while he was sleeping and the “sealing rope” had been tied (it’s done from the outside). Another driver confirms that those who deal with this have perfected their skills so much that the “seals” are broken and then made to look almost as if they were never touched.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:01   [This is the] fifth day with no contact from the detained Bulgarian driver
00:04   in France, accused of migrant trafficking.
00:07   It is now clear that the family discovered in the lorry trailer is from Iraq.
00:10   Colleagues of Valentin Yanchovski told BTV horrifying stories
00:14   about encounters with migrants on Europe’s highways.
00:18   Smiles — that’s what the drivers call them. Here — look at it.
00:24   The trucks of the firm that the detained man works for have been damaged at dozens of places.
00:29   The canvas is cut, the cargo is checked, and if there is room for migrants,
00:32   they put them in. There is nothing
00:35   we can do. Another man just happened to find migrants in his truck before authorities did.
00:39   I paused in France, [took an obligatory rest] and at night I felt the truck swaying.
00:47   I waited till daylight and when I opened, I saw four inside.
00:50   Sitting… I simply got lucky enough to sense them.
00:54   They climb on the chassis, and tie themselves with belts and hang on the bridges of the tyres…
01:01   The stress is great, because once the migrant claims he has paid
01:06   to climb on the truck, things get very complicated —
01:12   there is no way anybody could prove he didn’t.
01:16   The family of the detained man is in shock. It’s still not clear who, if anyone,
01:20   will handle his defence. I don’t know anything about him — whether he is healthy,
01:24   how he is feeling — he is probably devastated. Our consulate in Paris told BTV
01:29   yesterday that they are working on the case and an investigation is coming.
01:33   According to the national association of carriers anybody could be in the place of the detainee.
 

3 thoughts on “Bulgarian Driver Arrested for Migrant Stowaways on his Truck

  1. This has been going on for some time now, why haven’t they come up with a way to improve security on those trucks? A motion sensor inside the trailer should be simple enough.

  2. If only they could use this ingenuity to improve their home countries, then they wouldn’t be [sumps] they need to flee from.

  3. This is an example of what is termed anarchy-tyranny. This is where laws and legal processes are applied randomly, if at all, but the guise of law is used to devastate people who had no intention of breaking any law.

    Of course, it is the responsibility of the legal authorities to provide safe roads and rest stations. They fail in this regard, and instead focus their retribution on one of the victims of their own failure. It’s exactly like the English police who failed to protect the British girls from the rape gangs, but arrest the girls as delinquent or incarcerate them in foster homes if they come to the attention of the police.

Comments are closed.