Ronan Hughes (40) of Co Armagh admitted the charge on Friday at the Old Bailey.
He was one of several men accused of being part of a people-smuggling ring linked to the deaths of the 39 migrants last October.
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The bodies of the Vietnamese nationals were discovered on an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, shortly after the lorry arrived in Purfleet on a ferry in the early hours of October 23rd last year.
Among the men, women and children were 10 teenagers, two of them 15-year-old boys.
An inquest heard their medical cause of death was asphyxia and hyperthermia – a lack of oxygen and overheating – in an enclosed space.
