Van driver: ‘I thought 39 migrants were cigarettes’

A VAN driver has described how he was duped into people smuggling five days before 39 migrants were found dead, telling jurors: ‘I should have minded my own business.’

Valentin Calota, 38, claimed he unwittingly took a load of people from Essex to London on October 18 last year.

Jurors have heard the migrants had been shipped from Zeebrugge to Purfleet in a trailer, then transported to Orsett, where they were picked up in a van.

The defendant said he was wearing earphones and had the radio on for the hour-long trip to London and had no idea they were there.

The Romanian haulier told jurors he was ‘shocked’ to be arrested as part of the investigation into the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people who suffocated on the journey to Essex days later on October 23 last year.

Giving evidence at the Old Bailey, Calota said he was ‘misled’ by a Romanian acquaintance, Gheorghe Nica, who had offered to pay him £700 to transport cigarettes.

Asked how he felt now, Calota said: ‘I’m angry with him. But more than that I’m angry with myself because the mistake that brought me here was mine. I should not have accepted

‘I should have minded my own business’

involvement in any smuggling of cigarettes. I should have minded my own business and I’m very sorry.’

The defendant said he had known alleged key organiser Nica since 2017 and was aware he was involved in smuggling cigarettes.

Calota said he met Nica in a car park in Essex where he picked up a van and drove to a place in Orsett where the van was loaded.

‘I thought that the cigarettes he had been telling me about were being loaded,’ he said.

Calota said he set off on the hourlong journey to London, wearing his Bluetooth headset.

Once he got to London, Nica again told him to park but ‘not get out of the van, look ahead’, jurors heard.

Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, and Eamonn Harrison, 23, of Co. Down, have denied 39 counts of manslaughter. Calota, Harrison and Christopher Kennedy, 24, of Co. Armagh, have denied being involved in a people smuggling plot, which Nica has admitted.