The case erupted in October 2019 when the bodies of two young Vietnamese were discovered in a refrigerated truck near London. With 35 other victims. Two years later, twenty defendants found themselves before the Lyon Criminal Court. They will be judged from this Monday for “trafficking in human beings” and “assistance with the entry, movement or illegal stay of a foreigner in France, in an organized group”,
reveals The Dauphiné Libéré.
All are suspected of having belonged directly or indirectly to a vast network of illegal immigration. Among them, an elected representative from Grenoble and his wife, as well as two accountants. Some are suspected of having illegally employed illegal workers in restaurants in the Grenoble metropolitan area, under cover of false residence permits, of having exploited them and lodged them in undignified conditions. Others are suspected of having put them in touch with networks of smugglers in order to reach England, of having provided labor or of having produced false papers.
Most face a ten-year prison sentence.