Haulage boss and wife arrested for manslaughter after 39 migrants were discovered dead in a truck (Photo)

The couple identified as the last known owners of the lorry carrying 39 Chinese migrants who froze to death in UK have been arrested today after police swooped on their £400,000 Cheshire home.

Joanna Maher, 38, and her husband Thomas, also 38, from Warrington, are understood to have been held on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter.  

UK Police also announced that a 48-year-old man from Northern Ireland has now also been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and suspicion of manslaughter. He was arrested at Stansted Airport and it is the fourth arrest police have made into the investigation which was launched on Wednesday.  

Police said they had given an ‘initial steer’ as to the nationalities of the victims, but claimed that it was now a ‘developing picture’ and that they would not be drawn on detail until a full coroner’s report had taken place.

The couple had previously told MailOnline they sold the lorry cab a year ago to a company in Ireland but police officers investigating the tragedy raided their property today before searching the couple’s beauty salon around the corner, New Hair Don’t Care.  

The refrigerated trailer carrying the 39 frozen trafficking victims is believed to be owned by a rental firm in Dublin. A Cheshire Police patrol car arrived at the Irish couple’s four-bedroom house at 7am this morning before up to a dozen police officers went inside at around Midday just before the arrests were announced.