Man is found shot dead in British van carrying 10 illegal migrants at French motorway rest stop

DAILYMAIL.COM • 2h ago

By JAMIE BOYS, REPORTER 16:34 03 Oct 2026, updated 16:50 03 Oct 2026

A man has been found shot dead in a British tradesman’s van carrying ten illegal migrants at a French motorway rest stop.

The vehicle was found on Friday around 20 miles north of the city of Troyes, south-east of Paris, the local prosecutor’s office said.

The rest stop is around 200 miles away from the Channel crossing.

The body of a 47-year-old man was discovered at around 5am local time with a ‘gunshot wound to his head’ on a seat inside the van.

The van had UK licence plates but the nationality of the driver was still unknown, Troyes’s prosecutor Isabelle Verissimo said.

A suspect ‘believed to have been present at the crime scene’ was arrested early on Friday.

Around ten illegal migrants were found in the back of the van but authorities did not confirm their nationalities.

An initial investigation suggested shots were fired at the Champ l’Epée rest stop as the British van stopped to park there.

Several people then fled the scene, according to the prosecutor’s statement.

The Troyes prosecutor’s office said a criminal case would be opened today for ‘murder, attempted murder, unauthorised possession of a weapon, aiding the irregular entry, the movement and the residence of a foreigner in France as part of an organised group, and human trafficking as part of an organised group’.

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