On the 23rd of October 2019, 39 bodies were found in a chiller lorry in Essex, close to London. All victims were Vietnamese. Causes of death: suffocation and overheating. Two of them — Tran Ngoc Hieu (17) and Dinh Dinh Thai Quyen (just 18) — ran away from a protected shelter in Maastricht, the Netherlands, twelve days before the incident. A Belgian taxi brought the boys to a safehouse in Belgium. A Dutch police team followed the taxi from the Netherlands to Brussels and saw that the boys were dropped off in Anderlecht, a neighbourhood in Brussels. The boys ended up staying in the safehouse for a total of eleven days, without any police interference.

In March 2019, Argos uncovered that large numbers of Vietnamese children disappear after arriving in Europe. In the last five years more than 100 Vietnamese children disappeared in the Netherlands. Following Argos' radio broadcast (30 March 2019) the Dutch government started an investigation into 'the origin and size of Vietnamese human trafficking and smuggling in the Netherlands'. The Argos broadcast was the kick-off of a major international research project. Journalists in the UK, France, Belgium and Germany discovered that Vietnamese children are disappearing from asylum shelters there too.

How was it possible that — despite being on the radar of the police — everything ended so badly for Hieu and Quyen? Argos reconstructed their last journey and how they were rescued by the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee from a truck in Hoek van Holland. We found worrisome signs that this case didn’t merely concern human smuggling, but rather a large-scale network of international human traffickers.

This broadcast was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, which limited our possibilities to travel, meet people in person and record the audio in the highest possible quality.

You might recall this: around a year and a half ago 39 Vietnamese died in a lorry container. They suffocated on the way from Zeebrugge in Belgium to the British Essex. Yesterday, the British judge imposed hefty sentences on four men involved in this human smuggling tragedy. Two minor boys by the name of Quyen and Hieu were also in that container. They had disappeared from a Dutch shelter a week and a half prior to the incident. Where did things go wrong, with the protection of these two teenagers? Sanne Terlingen and Huub Jaspers started an investigation in collaboration with colleagues from the Flemish newspaper De Standaard and the RBB, the public broadcasting service in Berlin. Together they looked at the ins and outs of trafficking Vietnamese children. This investigation is part of the international project Lost in Europe. You’re listening to: The Final Journey of Quyen and Hieu.

[In English]

Operator: Hello, caller, is the patient breathing?
Caller: No... There's immigrants in the back, but they're, they're all down on the ground.
Operator: Okay, are they breathing?
Caller: I don't think so...
Operator: They're not breathing.
Caller: Don't think so, no.
Operator: Tell me approximately how many patients...
Caller: Ehhh... 25.
Operator: 25 patients not breathing...
Caller: Yeah yeah...

[Music]

BBC: [In English] Our main story is the discovery of 39 bodies in a lorry container in Essex.

Presenter (female): [In English] When officers arrived they found a truck with 39 bodies...

PBS: [In English] Police are trying to find the culprits behind the manslaughter of the 39 people who were...

Presenter (male): [In English]... found dead last week. ... Largest murder investigations in the country’s history after 39 dead bodies were discovered.

NOS Journaal: In the middle of the night, at twenty past one, the police received a notification from ambulance personnel. On an industrial park in a town outside of London a lorry was parked, its cargo made up of humans.

Police Essex: [In English] Emergency services attended. But sadly, all 39 people inside the container had died. Early indications suggest that one of these people was a
teenager.

NOS Journaal: An investigation will have to clarify how long the people in the lorry have been dead for.

[Music: Trent Reznor – What have we done to each other]

October 23rd, 2019. 39 people are discovered in a cooling truck, dead. 31 men, 8 women. Loc lies next to his wife, Van. He’s holding her hand.
They have been dead for a number of hours when the driver opens the container doors. Just like the other victims they are from Vietnam, and were hoping to travel to the UK in a refrigerated trailer. VIP – that’s what the smugglers call this form of transport. Thanks to the refrigerated trailer sniffer dogs cannot smell the humans on board. This increases the chances of a successful crossing.

VIP. Families left behind explain they thought it would also be a safe and comfortable option. They paid extra. The airtight container unit is sealed.

[In English] The trailer was loaded onto a ship called the Clementine. As the ship steamed towards England, the migrants were trapped inside the trailer in total darkness with no way of opening the doors.

The temperature rises. A girl takes a selfie that shows the sweat dripping off her body. People take off their clothes. There’s an iron bar on board, people try to break open the door with it. Some passengers are found with bruises and abrasions on their arms.
At one minute to seven, a 20-year-old boy named Luong, attempts to dial the Vietnamese emergency number, but there is no phone signal inside the container.

[In English] Pham The Thai Mi tried to make phone calls at seven-o-one, seven-o-two, seven- o-three and seven-o-four pm. But none of them were successful.

At ten PM the air reaches a toxic threshold, forensic experts later declare in court. The Vietnamese have been locked up for nine hours at this point. The temperature has risen to almost 39 degrees. Then it cools down again.
This must have been the moment the passengers stopped breathing.

Two hours later the Clementine enters the Purfleet port. That can be seen on CCTV footage requested by Essex police.

[In English] Maurice Robinson collected the trailer and drove out of the port, just after one o’ clock.

The police investigation shows the smugglers were well aware of how dangerous this operation was. The organiser sends a Snapchat message to the lorry driver in charge of picking up the container: ‘Give them air quickly! But don’t let them out.’
The lorry driver replies with a thumbs-up emoji.

At a quarter past one AM, he opens the back door. CCTV footage shows a cloud of vapor arising and the lorry driver frozen in his tracks for a minute and a half. He gets back on the lorry and phones his smuggler boss. 23 minutes later he finally calls the emergency number.

Operator: [In English] Hello, caller, is the patient breathing

39 deaths. Ten teenagers. Two of them stayed in a Dutch secured shelter in Cadier en Keer for almost five months. What went wrong?
To find out, we’ll have to go back in time.

[Rewinding noise]

Fall 2018. We have just launched our research project Lost in Europe. Working in an international team of journalists, we investigate how it’s possible that thousands of refugee children disappear after arriving in Europe.

We publish our first big story: at least sixty Vietnamese children have disappeared from the protected shelter. Sixty, that’s two entire school classes. And the protected shelter is the safest shelter we have in the Netherlands. This is where children who are at high risk to fall victim to human trafficking are taken, as well as children who have recently escaped or been rescued from a human trafficking network.

Good afternoon.

Hannah (reporter): Hi, hello. Hannah. Ingrid. Sanne.

We are the first journalists granted access to the shelter.

Sanne (reporter): We’re now in the living room with a few boys. Is that a problem? Us just standing here with these minors with our recorder?
Ingrid (Coordinator Xonar Youth Care and Education): Well, the kids that are present here are mostly focused on the tv, on getting it to work again. So, it’s not really a problem, no. What...

Sanne: Can we ask the kids any questions?
Ingrid: No, we made a deal not to do that. What we mostly want to go into is what it looks like here. Daily. So this minor is going to start cooking now. And he’s very caring, because he’s also preparing the food for others.
Sanne: I did see him grab a very large fish just now, yeah.
Ingrid: Yes, that’s right. I don’t know what he’s cooking, but whatever you take, it all tastes very good, and how they manage to do that, I don’t know.

The location manager does not want to talk about the disappearances, but we get our hands on internal reports which show that the shelter struggles with them.

Pupil was wearing a pair of full-length trousers on the day she disappeared, whereas before she would always wear shorts when it was hot outside. All personal belongings were left behind. The fan was still on, arts and crafts supplies were still on the desk. Mentors suspect she was picked up under force.

During the inspection of his room, we discovered a number of texts which according to Google Translate said: ‘can somebody help me’.

This morning I spoke to one of the school teachers and she told me about a notebook she found. On the front it says ‘goodbye’. In the notebook there are some translations of Dutch words, like ‘attic’. [...] It contains questions on borrowing money, phoning back, having problems. The teacher also noted that she had spoken to the music teacher, who told her of a note he had found. It said: [in English] ‘Thank you for everything. I never see you back.’

[Vietnamese music]

That was at the end of 2018. The two boys aren’t in the Netherlands yet but they are underway. Their names are Dinh Dinh Thai Quyen, given name “Quyen”, and Tran Ngoc Hieu. ‘Hieu’, for short.
Quyen is from Hai Phong, a port city with two million inhabitants. A bit like Marseille, with all connotations attached: noisy, a bit mob-like, with a strong drug mafia and plenty of smuggling.

[Background noise city]

Hieu grew up in Hai Duong, a smaller town located by the railroad between Hai Phong and Hanoi. He lived with his grandparents, but at the time we visit the protected shelter he is presumed to be in Ukraine.
The place was inhumane, his uncle tells a British newspaper:

They were kept in a cellar with twenty to thirty people. There was no place to wash up and he was struggling with eczema and other skin issues as a result of the appalling conditions.

The pieces of the puzzle of what happens with Vietnamese minors lie scattered across different countries. As such, much more international cooperation is needed. This sentiment was echoed by Herman Bolhaar, the National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking. He reacted on our story about the Vietnamese children on the Dutch tv show Nieuwsuur.

I think a big problem lies in figuring out who’s really worried about these children. These children appear to belong to no one. They come here alone, having gone through a long international journey. Then leaving again, to an unknown destination. Who actually cares about their destiny?

There are plenty of signs indicating that we need to be very worried about the fact that these children are susceptible to exploitation, as is shown in tonight’s report and Argos’ broadcast. Interviewer: But you would expect police to be highly committed to this, right?
Herman Bolhaar: Issues surrounding children in such vulnerable situations demand an active protective stance from the government. And that active protection means you go there. Interviewer: Is the government reneging in your view?

Herman Bolhaar: I think the government should be involved in this to a much higher degree than they are now.

The Secretary of State at the time tried to downplay the problem. He stated that executive agencies did not have any information about a smuggling network that would be involved in the disappearances. But the entire House of Representatives requested an inquiry. The Expert Centre for Human Trafficking and Human Smuggling was tasked with executing this investigation.

Our project Lost in Europe expanded too: our story on the missing Vietnamese made it into The Guardian in the UK. In Belgium, colleagues from Knack, De Standaard and the VRT investigated. It turned out 44 Vietnamese children went missing there. They also encountered exploitation in nail salons:

They are often young Asian girls and men working there, working long days, those salons are open seven days a week.

Would Germany be struggling with these same issues? Colleague Huub Jaspers is fluent in German and has many connections there. He went on a search to find a skilled journalist there.

And that’s how we got in touch with Adrian Bartocha from the RBB, the public broadcasting service in Berlin. Adrian discovered that in Berlin alone 474 Vietnamese children went missing.

[In German] Ja. Hallo. Schönen guten Tag nach Holland.

Adrian is originally from Poland. That made him notice that more and more Vietnamese were smuggled over the Polish-German border.

[In German] Das hat uns überrascht, denn Vietnamesen haben ja in Deutschland kaum Aussicht auf Asyl. Also, wer bringt sie her? Warum?

He sank his teeth in:

[In German] Nach Gesprächen mit euch, mit Argos, haben wir festgestellt: Auch hier sind unter den Eingeschleusten viele Minderjährige.

After talking to you we began to notice that among those smuggled in were many minors. And look: in Germany these children and youngsters disappear in exactly the same manner as in the Netherlands.

[In German] ...genauso auf die gleiche Art und Weise wie in Holland.

Together with colleague Jan Wiese he made a big documentary for television, which was broadcast last Monday.

[In German] Und haben dann halt festgestellt, dass es sich eindeutig um Menschenhändler- Netzwerke handelt.

Conclusion: this is not just human smuggling, but human trafficking as well. But more on this later...

Because it’s around the time we meet our German colleagues that Hieu and Quyen arrive in the Netherlands.

It is indeed around the 27th of May 2019. That day, at a quarter to one in the afternoon a lorry with a refrigerated trailer, driven by a Romanian driver [bleeped], arrives at the outbound checkpoint of Stena Line in Hoek van Holland.

They were being smuggled in a lorry coming from Germany, states public prosecutor Mirjam Blom in the court case against the driver and his employer.
The official load was made up of polymer window sills, but the lorry was parked at a gas station near Cologne for four nights. The backdoor was unlocked. At seven AM the driver received a phone call telling him to drive to Hoek van Holland.

When the dog handler passed the trailer with his sniffer dog, it began to bark. And that led to the suspicion that there were people inside the trailer.

That dog had made an alert during the inspection. And then we got the trailer moved. And then we climbed in and the two of us crawled to the back.

Two watchmen from the Koninklijke Marechaussee (national police) tell us how they found the Vietnamese:

Sergeant 1: At first glance it’s just a normal refrigerated trailer. And you do notice that the cooling motor isn’t on.
Sergeant 2: We saw a face through a small grid in the back. We opened it and took out the people we saw. And that was around five to six. And then he was already crawling to the back. And yes, that’s when I heard pounding. So I told him: yeah, come back up here. Because I don’t think this is everything.

During the court case against the smugglers, we hear that the lorry has been transformed in the UK. This was organized by the organization’s mastermind. We don’t mention his name but he is a highly ranked smuggler in Manchester. He arranged for cameras and a tracker to be installed inside the lorry, as well as the creation of three hidden compartments. That’s where the Vietnamese were supposed to go:

Sergeant 2: When we looked inside the gap they came out off, we just saw a floor and aluminium foil around the edges. And then a hatch opened up in that floor. And out of it came a hand and then an entire body. And then we asked him like: how many? And then he said: five. And then another five appeared from there and beneath that was another layer and five more came out.
Sergeant 1: That hatch they came out off, I myself couldn’t fit through.
Sergeant 2: I could also see them lying on top of each other. They had nowhere to put their legs or have their own spot. Everyone was sort of piled on top of one another.

In the end, the Marechaussee found 15 people in that constructed space: eleven men and four women. They were in bad shape. An ambulance had to get in to check up on people.

Research organization TNO calculated that the oxygen would last for an hour and a half, if the trailer was not moving. This means that the Vietnamese probably would not have survived the crossing to the UK.

This goes to show that the organizations that are involved in this type of human smuggling are ruthless and smuggle humans in life-threatening conditions.

Sergeant 1: They were just drenched in sweat. A very dark look in their eyes. And the moment they came out of the hidden compartment they were immediately gasping for air. Huub Jaspers (reporter): Have you experienced anything like this before?
Sergeant 2: Not this intense. You would have to have it really bad in your own country, to be willing to do this.

[Music: Clint Mansell – Dead reckoning]

You’re listening to Argos, the investigative program by HUMAN and VPRO on NPO Radio 1. We are telling the story of Hieu and Quyen, two Vietnamese boys who were found dead in a refrigerated lorry in the UK on the 23rd of October, 2019. But we’re not there yet: at this point in time Hieu and Quyen have actually just been rescued from a refrigerated lorry by the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, in Hoek van Holland.

They are taken to the protected shelter. That’s right, the protected shelter so many Vietnamese children disappear from, as we have discovered.

My name is Joella Bravo Mougan, I’m a lawyer, have been for twelve years now, and I’ve been specialized in assisting asylum seekers, refugees, pretty much from the start. And assistance to victims of human trafficking, including minors.
Sanne (reporter): One of the reasons we were very eager to interview you, is that you were also the lawyer of the two boys that were in the protected shelter. We call them Hieu and Quyen.

Joella Bravo Mougan: I knew them by different names. I called them Tran and Nam. Sanne: And then Tran is Hieu?
Joella Bravo Mougan: Hieu, yes.
Sanne: What kind of boys were they?

Joella Bravo Mougan: They were actually just two really nice Vietnamese boys, who I met in the protected shelter. They had been in the Netherlands for a few weeks at that point, after they had been discovered in a container in the port and were taken and eventually placed in the protected shelter. And then applied for asylum, at which point they are assigned a lawyer. And that was me.

Sanne: Just to get it clear for myself: have you ever had a client who was granted asylum, from Vietnam?
Joella Bravo Mougan: No, I’ve never had a Vietnamese client who was eventually granted international protection.

Sanne: How come?
Joella Bravo Mougan: All of my clients disappeared at one point. Right now, I’m assisting two Vietnamese girls, who are currently going through the asylum procedure. But we’ll see how that will go.

Lawyer Bravo Mougan had multiple conversations with Hieu:

JOELLA BRAVO MOUGAN (lawyer)
He told me he was traveling through Russia for fun. To go to the World Championship. Sanne (reporter): Do you believe that?
Joella Bravo Mougan: No, of course not. [Awkward chuckle]

Little by little Hieu starts sharing more...

I got the picture that Hieu thought that it was a transit country. That he wouldn’t end up working over there in Russia. And eventually he was, he told me, that he had been transported to the Ukraine, where he was also waiting for a number of months, and then he travelled on. About the time in the Ukraine Hieu also tells me, I specifically asked him about it, whether he was allowed to leave the house, and he was not. He was only allowed to go upstairs for a bit to watch tv.
Sanne (reporter): And do you have any indication of where he met Quyen? Was Quyen there all this time?
Joella Bravo Mougan: I didn’t manage to get it completely clear, where exactly it was that they met. Quyen tells me a slightly different story. Also with a transit route through Russia. But he also clearly states that he was passing through Germany...

Did they have any clue of what awaited them?

I did not get the feeling that he had any control over how the trip would unfold.

Quyen did not want to talk about it anymore. He was very closed off.

Hieu wanted to press charges, and from his story I could gather that there was a trip for which he had to pay a lot of money. Which he didn’t have. And he didn’t have a clear idea of how he’d ever be able to pay it off. And when you look at human trafficking as a crime, and all its elements, you can pretty much add it up. And then it becomes clear that at the very least there was an intent of exploitation at play here.
That he would eventually be coerced into paying off this very high travel sum, and considering the fact he was still a child, uhm yeah...

[Music: Cliff Martinez – Son of Placenta Previa]

Our German colleague Adrian Bartocha had said it before: this is not just human smuggling, but human trafficking as well. We noticed that Germany kept on popping up in the records, and – as we mentioned before – Adrian dug in deep this past year. So we asked him to what extent these Vietnamese networks are coordinated. He immediately starts talking about one of the main characters in his film, Andrezj:

[In German] Andrezj ist ein polnischer Schleuser aus Warschau...

Andrzej is a Polish smuggler from Warsaw, who has demonstrably brought over hundreds of Vietnamese people via Lithuania and Poland to Germany, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Including children.

[In German] Das ist ein Schwerkrimineller, kommt aus dem Umfeld der Pruszkow-Mafia.

He is a hardened criminal from Warsaw, who has multiple convictions. He is attached to the notorious Polish Pruszkov-mafia, who spread much fear and terror in the nineties. Back then they were involved in car theft. They stole cars in the West on demand and brought them over to Russia.

[In German] Und als dann die vietnamesische Organisation in Warschau ihn gefragt hatte, ob er für sie arbeiten will, hat er natürlich zugegriffen.

When a Vietnamese organization in Warsaw asked him to come work for them, he of course accepted. It’s lucrative! There were so many Vietnamese that he was supposed to bring to the West, he had to hire people to assist.

[In German] Andrzej’s vietnamesische Auftraggeber haben ja nicht nur Menschen nach Westeuropa gebracht, sondern auch Drogen, vor allem Crystal Meth.

Andrezj’ Vietnamese client did not only traffic people, but also drugs. Most of all crystal meth.

We’re not talking about the small fish. Andrzej has since been convicted for human trafficking. He’s in prison. The court considered it proven that he had undertaken hundreds of trips over a period of a couple of months. The GPS-systems of the rental cars used show that the gang also drove to France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
And these smugglers did not handle their merchandise with care:

[In German] Wir wissen, dass diese Menschen zur Arbeit gezwungen werden.

We know that people were being hit along the way, or were forced into labour. They were held for weeks at a time.

[In German] Frauen und Mädchen werden vergewaltigt.

Women and children were raped.

We watched Adrian’s documentary together with Warner ten Kate, National Prosecutor Human Trafficking:

A shocking report. Very recognizable, but still, when you see it again it’s very shocking.

Sanne (reporter): You were aware of all this?
Warner ten Kate: Yes, but it does serve as a wakeup call every time one sees this, and you do realize the gravity, and also the minors that fall victim to human traffickers.
Sanne: Did anything in particular stand out to you?
Warner ten Kate: Yes, the very young age of these children. That they are being put to work at such a young age. And the hesitation of some authorities to act on this.

The documentary shows that Vietnamese often pay up to 20,000 euros for the voyage to Europe. We also know that Hieu had to pay 20,000 euro for the part of his travel up until the Netherlands. On the Vietnam route it’s strictly business, emphasizes Ten Kate.

Those that are smuggled are of course the merchandise to these smugglers and dealers. And what they want to avoid at any cost is to lose their grip on them. This is why victims are often kept in captivity for a longer period of time, for example when they haven’t paid. That payment is often an issue.

And that’s how Vietnamese end up in nail salons and weed plantations. Or they’re forced – as is also shown in the documentary – to sell cigarettes on the street.

Anyone can do this, so to say, but what we see is that specific types of businesses such as nail salons and massage studios are especially susceptible to human trafficking.
Sanne (reporter): But is this considered human trafficking? Or can we see it as a sort of side job to pay off the travel costs?

Warner ten Kate: Yes, ha. Within the Netherlands it’s just cold-blooded human trafficking. There’s no doubt about it, it is criminal exploitation. The child does not have a choice. It is of course completely abnormal for a twelve-year-old child to be outside on the street selling cigarettes.

It seems like the issue is finally taken seriously in the Netherlands. And there are more signs pointing in that direction: over the past year there have been at least two court cases against drivers smuggling Vietnamese. In both cases they left Berlin early in the morning from the Dong Xuan Centre, and were pulled over near Venlo. The verdict in one of these cases reads:

The statements of the four persons found in the car are shocking, and are reminiscent of modern slavery. They stated [...] that they had come to Europe at a young age and that they were working for their ‘bosses’ in Europe. One of them spoke of an organized gang. His boss had told him that he had to get into a car to go work somewhere. The costs of the trip would be held back from his salary.

[Music: Trent Reznor – The Seconds Drag]

Despite everything, once again six Vietnamese minors disappear from the protected shelter in Limburg, in August of 2019. But whereas before the police at times did not even show up on the day someone went missing, this time they arrive with four police cars and a helicopter.

Internal notes show that there had been signs throughout that day that the minors wanted to get out. They keep their shoes on, and an employee catches them outside pointing out ‘certain aspects in their environment’ to each other. One of the boys mimics a bird with his hand.

At seven PM something striking happens: a Vietnamese boy approaches his mentor, and uses Google Translate to tell him that a group wants to leave the shelter. It’s Hieu. He does this out of sight from the others, and is scared they’ll see him warning the mentor.
Lawyer Joella Bravo Mougan spoke to Quyen and Hieu about the incident:

And then Hieu told me they had been approached to join them, but that in the end they chose not to go with them because they had a feeling something was off. That he wasn’t sure where he would end up if he joined that group.

When the minors rush out over the football field at eight thirty PM, Hieu talks to his mentor once again. This time with the assistance of a translator. He says that he knows the others are hiding in a cornfield nearby. Hieu is worried about the youngest of the two girls, he states. Hieu also shares information about the smugglers. He says the youngsters fled the network he himself was a victim of. We read this in reports from the protected shelter:

[Hieu] has mentioned the name of a guy in Manchester. He receives money from the minors’ families. [...] This man continuously changes phone numbers but can communicate over Facebook.
[Hieu] wants to press charges ASAP because he’s afraid.

And at first the police reaction was: Hieu didn’t really have that much to say...yes...they didn’t really see the use of him pressing charges.
Sanne (reporter): Because it’s really quite out of the ordinary right, him wanting to press charges.

Joella Bravo Mougan: That’s right, yes. This was the first of my Vietnamese clients who wanted to press charges. And dared to talk.

Hieu also told lawyer Bravo Mougan about the organization he feared so much:

He told me that an important person within the network was someone in Manchester, in the UK. I also thought that would be relevant to the police. And that it might hopefully lead towards a wider investigation into that.

Hieu is eventually allowed to press charges with the AVIM, the police department Aliens, Identification and Human Trafficking. As a victim of human trafficking, he would be – as long as the investigation was running – eligible for a B8-permit. A permit that applies to the period of time the investigation takes up. But the police do not allow Hieu to press charges of human trafficking, but rather of human smuggling.

Then, on October 23 2019, the day of the Essex catastrophe, lawyer Bravo Mougan receives an email from the guardian of one of the boys:

That was a few weeks after Hieu had pressed charges with the police. And the guardian wrote: ‘unfortunately Hieu has left to an unknown destination last week. The B8 was not issued because according to the AVIM this wasn’t a case of human trafficking, but of human smuggling. He ran away together with Nam.’ And Nam is Quyen in this case. And I had of course heard the news of this tragedy and the first thing that went through my mind was: oh no, please don’t let it be my client. [Takes a deep breath in, sighs] I still get a bit emotional thinking about it. [Weeps softly]

Sanne (reporter): Do you suspect Hieu ran away because he didn’t get any protection?

Joella Bravo Mougan: Well look, Hieu made it very clear to me he sensed something was off about that trip, and its final destination. So he said: ‘I’d like to receive protection within the Netherlands’. The asylum procedure dragged on. He wanted to press charges of human trafficking, but was told: ‘No, this isn’t human trafficking, this is just human smuggling’. So he wouldn’t get protection that way. And as such, he didn’t have any alternative within the Netherlands. He wouldn’t receive protection. And those debts have to get paid off. And there might be a network prodding to remind him of that...
Well yes, if that’s the case I’m not surprised he eventually ran off like all those others.

You are listening to Argos, the investigative program by HUMAN and VPRO on NPO Radio 1. We are telling the story of Hieu and Quyen, two Vietnamese boys who were discovered dead in a refrigerated lorry in Essex. In the UK the court cases against the lorry drivers and the persons organizing the trip are currently in full force.

Belgian politician Ben Segers of the Social Democratic party SPA, closely follows the developments in the case:

The current inquiry in the UK shows that in the morning of October 22, so one day before their death, that cell phone signals were picked up from Paris and another one from Brussels.

On a previous smuggling trip something went wrong, which is why the smugglers decided to transit two loads of Vietnamese to the UK at once. One load from Belgium, and one load from France. They gather on an industrial park near Dunkirk. Images released by police show how, on the morning of October 22nd, at 21 past nine two taxis arrive. The car from Brussels holds Quyen and Hieu.

The boys went missing from the Netherlands on October 11th. This means that they stayed somewhere in Belgium for eleven days in between. The Belgians also knew where, politician Ben Segers says. Because when they left the protected shelter and got into a taxi, they were being followed by the police.

So, the Dutch police were performing an observation of that taxi. And followed the taxi to an address in Anderlecht, Brussels. Upon arrival they requested – in accordance with the regulations by the way – authorization for this border-crossing observation, which they in fact received immediately from the Belgian authorities. But subsequently, something went awfully wrong.

Huub (reporter): Yes. And why did it go wrong?
Ben Segers: Well, according to the Dutch police the investigation was handed over to the Brussels police force after that pursuit on October 11th. But the Belgian federal public prosecutor’s office said that they had only been informed of the fact that the boys were staying in Anderlecht in Brussels after the events in Essex had transpired. And the public prosecutor’s office in Brussels declined to comment.

At first, the Belgian minister claimed that the Netherlands had requested to not intervene. That this is the reason Belgium didn’t do anything.

It turned out that was nonsense. And Belgian judicial authorities also claimed that the Netherlands had told them they would contact them again on the Monday after that Friday when everything went wrong, but that turned out to be nonsense as well. And then the Belgian judicial authorities also claimed they didn’t have any information concerning signs of human smuggling. That they couldn’t have known what was going on. Once again, nonsense.

Segers explains that Belgium has excellent legislation. After the Dutch tip-off the magistrate specialized in this should have been immediately informed, but that didn’t happen. And considering the fact that minors were involved, the guardian service should have also been brought in.

These minors are simply forgotten. That’s what’s most disturbing to me. Mistakes happen, unfortunately. But right now, I want that at the very least for us to learn something from this, in order to do better in the future. This is something we owe the Essex victims.

But what exactly happened during this cooperation between the Netherlands and Belgium? The Dutch police was in pursuit of Hieu and Quyen, and then what? We asked the National Officer for Human Trafficking: Warner ten Kate.

The criminal investigation has brought up some things, bits and bobs from it have been mentioned in the Belgian Parliament. And I can say in good conscience that to my knowledge the Dutch police and public prosecutor’s office have dealt with that correctly, and that’s really all I want to say about it.
Sanne (reporter): So I can’t ask you why the Netherlands didn’t stop that taxi, with those boys inside?
Warner ten Kate: You can ask but... I won’t be answering that.
Sanne: Does what the Belgian minister say, that the Netherlands have been negligent, ring true?
Warner ten Kate: Well, he took that back later on.
Sanne: And that second version is more in line with your views.
Warner ten Kate: Of course, because I think that also corresponds better with what actually happened.

But what DID happen? We still don’t know. Therefore, we ask two Belgian Lost in Europe- colleagues to help us out.

Roeland Termote: Yes, ha, hi there Sanne.
Sanne (reporter): Ah, yes, there you are.
Roeland Termote: Is it ok if I put you on speaker, we’re with two of course.

Roeland Termote and Wouter Woussen, both work for De Standaard. They are the journalists who discovered that the Dutch police had followed Quyen and Hieu.

Roeland Termote: We are in Anderlecht, close to the safe house those two boys were staying at in October...
Wouter Woussen: Just around the corner of that specific street at the moment.

Roeland and Wouter are taking a look at the place where Quyen and Hieu spent their final days. And checking whether any neighbours might have seen them. The Vietnamese landlord was arrested a few months back.

A yellow house with one, two, three, four floors. Two shutters with a small door in between, and then a front door, and those two shutters with the little door in between that’s the floor the Vietnamese were staying at.

Roeland and Wouter ring the bell:

[Sound of doorbell with Füre Elise tune]

A Chinese woman opens the door. She doesn’t speak Dutch or French, nor English. She points up. There, on the first floor, the landlord’s daughter lives. She yells from the window that she doesn’t have time to talk, she’s busy doing an online course.

Well, it might also not be very nice to have to talk about a crime your parents are suspected of.

Then the journalists finally get something:

[In French] Bonjour! Nous sommes journalistes, parlez-vous Anglais? Oui? Oh, can we speak English then? Ok.

They talk to an upstairs neighbour, who says that several groups of Vietnamese people have passed through the house on the ground floor.

[In English] Yes, we see it. Because they are so many people. Downstairs.

On a summer day in August of 2019, it was very hot and then she would see that the shutter was open and that you could just look inside that house and she said that she had seen a lot of Vietnamese people there. At least ten people where there at the time. They were friendly enough, but quiet, and they didn’t speak much.

[In English] They disappeared in October. Yeah. They just suddenly disappeared.

Less than a week after the Essex tragedy the ground floor is rented out to the Chinese lady. She is completely unaware. Everything here points to a well-run organization, that knew exactly that they got too close to the fire.

Still the question remains: if the Belgian authorities were aware of Hieu and Quyen being locked away here, why didn’t they do anything?

Exactly, that’s the question. And that’s a question that has stayed largely unanswered so far. Because those Belgian authorities, in this case the Brussels’ public prosecution’s office, did admit there were suspicions of human smuggling. And then they put down in writing that they, even though they were aware, still did nothing to intervene. And when we pose the question to them – well, please explain what exactly happened here, and why you didn’t do anything – the answer you get is very vague.

The reasoning in Belgium is that their own authorities were negligent, but that the Netherlands handled everything in the correct manner. After all, the Dutch police pursued Quyen and Hieu by car. We even hear that they waited in front of the door of the safehouse for two hours, hoping for the Belgians to take on the observation. Still, all doors shut when we pose any questions regarding this.

National Prosecutor Warner ten Kate does not want to make any statements because the Belgian investigation is still ongoing. The regional prosecution office in Limburg tells us we have already spoken to Warner ten Kate, and therefore does not want to give an interview. And even the protected shelter does not want to talk to us anymore.

I had a suspicion that the Dutch authorities were holding back in providing information to me. And for a long time I didn’t understand why, because I thought: you did everything correctly, and in Belgium it got completely messed up, you would almost have to be glad when a journalist calls and you can share that with him.

It all has to do with one big question: why did the police not stop the taxi transporting Hieu and Quyen?

We discovered that the protected shelter granted the boys a lot of freedom, precisely because they had shown for months that they really did not want to leave. At ten past four they get on their bikes to go to Maastricht. They’re allowed to go out for two hours.

A spokesperson for the Dutch Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has stated multiple times that the protected shelter really did not get any signals or had suspicions that the boys would leave. After a period of emailing back and forth, he does confirm that there had been an incident that morning: one of the boys had been caught with a cell phone. Those are not allowed within the shelter. The police had been informed of this incident. But, the spokesperson states: ‘If the police were keeping an eye on the boys, or were carrying out an investigation, this was not known to the shelter.’

The Belgian colleagues discover that the police observe Quyen and Hieu from the moment they leave school, thus even before they get on their bikes to Maastricht. They pursue the boys when they visit an Asian supermarket. And also when they cycle on to the Dorpsstraat after. This is where the boys get into a Belgian taxi at ten to six.

It takes them twenty-five minutes to reach the Belgian border. All this time the Dutch observation team is following them by car. At seven minutes past eight the police watches as Quyen and Hieu enter the safehouse.
It seems that the police very consciously chose to follow the boys in order to get their eyes on the network. But is that even allowed?

We come across Article 126ff of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This is a law that was passed after the IRT-affair, when it was revealed that large quantities of illegal drugs were knowingly allowed in under direction of police and the judicial system, in hopes of catching the entire network. It became illegal following a parliamentary inquisition. Because a human life is more important and fragile than drugs, the House of Representatives decided that this ban on passage should also apply to human smuggling and to human trafficking.

How exactly does this work? We discuss this with two professors: Theo de Roos, emeritus professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedural Law and former replacing counsellor at the Den Bosch court. And with Conny Rijken, professor of Human Trafficking and Globalization at Tilburg University.

Well, this ban on passage, applies to both human trafficking and human smuggling. And in the case of human trafficking this ban on passage is absolute, so it’s always applicable. And in case of human smuggling exceptions on that passage ban can be allowed under specific circumstances.
Sanne (reporter): What are those circumstances?
Conny Rijken: It has to be voluntarily, so there can be no form of coercion at play. It may not lead to inhumane situations. There has to be a higher stake, so the passage and allowance of a criminal act to take place should lead to the identification of an important suspect. And it would have to be impossible for this investigation to be executed any other way.

It seems quite conceivable that in this case the police would’ve thought: by pursuing those boys we’ll finally get our eyes on that network. But still, it goes against the law, explains Theo de Roos.

Of course, it’s understandable. You want to know who are behind this. But this is exactly why this assessment is so important within this current regulation. Not a single risk should be taken, because this is about human lives. You can factor this in beforehand, because the people behind this organization are not necessarily peaceful and one human life more or less is of no interest to them.

Hieu and Quyen are children, and ‘minority’ gives even more justification to immediate intervention. Conny Rijken also points out that the police knew they would lose authority once they crossed the border:

As a Dutch public servant police man you know that you don’t have any authority here once you’re on Belgian territory, on whether you intervene or not. That lies of course with the Belgian colleagues. One really has to be careful to look at: what risks could this lead to? And it’s a continuous balance between the risks to the victims on the one hand, in this case these minors. And the importance of the investigation on the other. And in this case that consideration seems to have been handled incorrectly.
Huub (reporter): What should happen now?
Conny Rijken: I think it would be of merit if the Dutch police would also re-evaluate this case and check if their handling of it was indeed correct, and also take responsibility for it. And the same goes for the Belgian police, by the way.

To retroactively get to the bottom of what went wrong in this case and, more general, what are the limits of the measures used in combating human trafficking in a responsible manner.

[Audio of Vietnamese voice]

On the 27th of November 2019 the bodies of Hieu and Quyen arrive in Vietnam. Exactly that day, Hieu would have been celebrating his 18th birthday.

[Audio of church service held for victims in Vietnam]

In the UK, four persons involved have been found guilty of manslaughter. In court the victims’ families speak of the huge debts they have been left with. Thousands of euros that they’ll have to pay off one way or another.

People have been arrested in Vietnam, France and Belgium as well. The court cases in Belgium will start any day now:

Sanne (reporter): Everything surrounding the tragedy in Essex is currently subject to thorough investigations in both the UK and Belgium. Have they ever requested a statement from your client?
Joella Bravo Mougan: No, the police haven’t contacted me ever again.
Sanne (reporter): Not even to include the statement made by Hieu in this big Essex court case?
Joella Bravo Mougan: No.

No man by the name mentioned by Hieu has ever been arrested in the Essex investigation. The boss who coordinated the smuggling from Manchester.

At the same time, it becomes more and more evident just how ubiquitous Vietnamese human trafficking is. Children’s rights organization Defence for Children discovered that twelve of the Vietnamese that went missing in the Netherlands, have been identified as suspected victims of human trafficking. There is evidence of forced sex work, criminal exploitation – for example on weed plantations – and forced labour.

And the police Expert Centre for Human Smuggling and Human Trafficking also concludes that there are indications of human smuggling with regard to the Vietnamese children that went missing from the protected shelter, and that there is a suspicion of ‘a certain level of criminal organization’. It also states that the smuggling is almost always done with the goal of exploiting migrants: and that constitutes human trafficking.

We have found out that the Ministry was not too pleased with this conclusion. After all, didn’t the secretary of state say that there were no indications of human trafficking and human smuggling whatsoever? What are you going to do to resolve this, the Ministry of Justice asked the Expert Centre. We’re told that the Ministry tried to influence the conclusions made in the report.

We file a request with the police using the Freedom of Information Act, in which we, among other things, request all communication surrounding this report, but six months later we still haven’t received any answers. We pose questions surrounding the case to their press office more than a month before this broadcast. They coordinate their answer with the Ministry and state:‘The Ministry did indeed phone to say that the conclusions made in the report did not correspond with what the Secretary of State told the House of Representatives, but that was merely an observation.’

In a reaction, the Ministry of Justice states that they do not recognize the picture that is painted. They just asked for clarification.

When we made our first broadcast on the missing Vietnamese, sixty children were missing. At this point, there are over a hundred.

I’m also assisting two Vietnamese girls right now.

Sanne (reporter): So there are still Vietnamese minors traveling to the Netherlands, even during the corona crisis.
Joella Bravo Mougan: Oh yes for sure, yes.
Sanne: What is their story?

Joella Bravo Mougan: There are a lot of similarities to the other stories. They have also traveled through Russia. They also tell me about a high debt that still needs to be paid off.

One of the girls stated that the debt collectors are threatening her family. These debt collectors are the same persons who organized the travel.

She also was able to tell me that those human traffickers really did tell them that those who couldn’t afford their travel costs would have to earn them. And they did mention prostitution then.
Sanne (reporter): Those girls would like to stay in the Netherlands?

Joella Bravo Mougan: Yes.
Sanne: Do you get the feeling that the agencies in charge of investigating have learned from Essex?
Joella Bravo Mougan: At first I did not, because when I contacted the police to inform them that my client wanted to press charges, they told me that no charges of human trafficking would be pressed, because this was a case of human smuggling. Eventually I reminded them of Essex and then charges of human trafficking were pressed. But when that investigation eventually is closed down and nothing else happens in this case, well that makes me think nothing has changed.
Sanne: But how long did the investigation go on for?
Joella Bravo Mougan: I’m scrolling through my computer right now...I’m searching for the police’s response...Exactly...twelve days between the pressing of charges and the premature ending of the investigation. Yes, I’m chuckling a bit, but I’ve seen so many of these premature endings. This girl managed to name one of the places she was held at. Well...if we continue like this nothing will ever change of course...

[End music]

The tragic fate of two teenagers who really just had a very human wish: to live a better life. You have listened to a reportage by Sanne Terlingen and Huub Jaspers, with additional reporting by Roeland Termote, Wouter Woussen and Adrian Bartocha. Editor in chief is Harry Lensink, sound engineer is Alfred Koster.

We have asked the National Prosecution Office for a statement on this investigation and they state that the passage ban was not applicable here because – and I quote – ‘there were no suspicions of human trafficking or any other criminal acts’. End quote.

But then the question still remains why a police observation team pursued these boys for half a day, if there weren’t any suspicions. What suspicions and thoughts did the prosecutor have in this case? The two boys were saved from a trailer by the Royal Marechaussee and put in a protected shelter. They tried to press charges of human trafficking and eventually were driven through large parts of Belgium in a taxi before they go missing.

We have also asked the Ministry of Justice for a statement. They say that they cannot comment on the individual cases of Quyen and Hieu. The Ministry does – and I quote again – ‘deem it important that history does not repeat itself. What happened in Essex is a very serious case with a heart wrenching ending’. Well, we can only agree with that.

The full statements can be found on our website: argosonderzoekt.nl. There you also can find the trailer of the German television documentary ‘Handelsware Kind – die Mafia der Menschenhändler’ and the complete interview with one of the producers, Adrian Bartocha.