39 bodies found in truck container in Essex: Live updates - CNN International

A police officer secures the cordon at at the scene where a lorry, believed to have originated from Bulgaria, and found to be containing 39 dead bodies, was discovered at Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays, east of London, on Wednesday. Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

People losing their lives while trying to unlawfully enter European countries in truck containers has happened before.

Earlier this year, four human traffickers were jailed for life by a Hungarian court after the bodies of 71 migrants were discovered in the back of an abandoned truck in Austria, according to Reuters.

In 2000, authorities in the British port of Dover discovered the bodies of 58 Chinese migrants who suffocated in the back of an airtight truck during a ferry crossing from the Netherlands.

Today, with more stringent border checks in place -- utilizing technology like thermal imaging cameras to identify migrants hidden within vehicles -- the option has become much more difficult and costly to attempt, with smugglers charging thousands of euros for passage.

"The UK has invested a lot of money in protecting the lorry routes" from migrants crossing from France, said Nando Sigona, an associate professor in international migration at the University of Birmingham told CNN earlier this year. "That route has probably been sealed off, or made more difficult to pursue."

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