Dead immigrants’ case — Owner of Dutch truck arrested

The truck owner is "a 24-year old Dutchman whose name is listed with the Rotterdam chamber of commerce as owner of the Vander Speck company," said Tjebbe de Jong, spokesman for the Zwolle prosecutors who are handling the case.

De Jong did not reveal the man’s name, but he appears on the chamber of commerce list as Arjen van der Speck, who set up the company on June 15 only a few days before the truck embarked for England aboard a ferry at the Belgian Port of Zeebrugge.

He gave himself up to police in Rotterdam late Tuesday and was immediately arrested.

The father of the already arrested truck driver Perry Wacker was named by the NRC Handelsblad as J N Wacker, 55, a transport company employee in the Rotterdam region.

Rotterdam prosecutors confirmed on Tuesday that they had arrested a 55-year-old Rotterdam man, but did not reveal his identity.

Perry Wacker was being interrogated by British officials in Dover, according to the head of the British inquiry Dennis McGookin.

The Dutch daily revealed on Tuesday that 33-year-old Wacker had "a bad reputation" amongst his colleagues.

Thirty-five Dutch investigators are collaborating with British and Chinese police to probe Chinese migrant traffickers known as `snakeheads’, who charge hefty fees for shipping people to the West.

But in Britain, Chinese immigrants were reluctant to help police with their investigations because they fear their own status may be challenged, lawyers said today.