EXCLUSIVE: Despite a crackdown on courier jobs, our undercover investigation still found people willing to find small boat migrants work delivering takeaways.
Keir Starmer’s crackdown on asylum seekers working as delivery drivers is failing to stop criminals using social media to sell courier accounts to illegal migrants, an undercover Express investigation has found.
Posing as the relative of a small boat migrant living in a Home Office hotel our reporter was able to secure multiple offers of illegal work through Facebook adverts and was even granted access to a courier account so his asylum seeker ‘cousin’ could deliver goods.
Those cashing in on the migrant black market openly bragged about bypassing facial recognition checks and touted for business in 40,000-strong online communities.
Reform UK MP Lee Anderson claimed the investigation’s findings were “damning proof that Starmer’s Labour government has zero intention of stopping illegal migration.
“It’s way too easy for illegal migrants to walk straight into cash-in-hand jobs, which acts as a blazing neon welcome sign to migrants in Calais,” he added.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said it “beggared belief” that such practices were still going on nearly six months after the government summoned fast food couriers Deliveroo, JustEat and Uber Eats to Downing Street and set them a 90 day deadline to end illegal working on their platforms.
“Labour promised a crackdown, but it’s clear illegal immigrants are still exploiting loopholes. The Labour Government must get a grip,” he said.
During the summer, the Express exposed how asylum seekers were brazenly being employed as couriers despite not having the legal right to work and spoke to legitimate drivers whose earnings were being slashed.
Yet within minutes of contacting sellers in delivery driver Facebook groups, who were offering to rent Deliveroo, JustEat, UberEats and Stuart accounts, we were inundated with work opportunities.
Five different individuals confirmed in messages that they were willing to sell account access to an illegal migrant they knew didn’t have the right to work.
One was Akash Verma from Southall, West London, who told our undercover reporter an asylum seeker could use a Deliveroo account set up in his wife’s name for £50 a week.
He claimed to be circumventing the platform’s facial recognition system – that uses selfie photos to catch out false identities – by having workers drop by his house to scan his wife’s face, which wasn’t a problem as “they only ask twice a day” for a picture.
Verma’s social media posts suggested he was renting accounts on multiple platforms and earning hundreds of pounds a week. He did not respond to our repeated requests for comment.
Edinburgh-based Asim Malik, who was selling access to a Stuart courier account in central London for a £50 weekly fee, allowed our undercover reporter to log in to his profile, so a man he believed was an illegal migrant could begin work.
Within minutes of gaining access to the account, our reporter was inundated with offers to deliver goods for major supermarkets and high-street retailers. We then discovered the details attached to the profile were for a woman, not Malik.
When we confronted Malik about his actions, he claimed to be unaware that it would be “illegal,” and when pressed on the account being in someone else’s name, he ended our video call.
A third man, Amir Jemel, agreed to rent his JustEat account for £80 a week to an illegal migrant, first by text message and then in person with our undercover reporter.
Jemel, however, failed to show for a final meeting to exchange the account. When we reached him by phone, he initially claimed he “didn’t realise” it was illegal, but eventually admitted “I did a mistake” in making the arrangement.
Our undercover reporter was inundated with work offers on the Stuart delivery app (Image: Express)
In response to our story, Minister for Border Security and Asylum Alex Norris said: “No asylum seeker should be abusing our hospitality and working illegally.
“We have sent a stark message to those with no right to be here with nearly 50,000 illegal migrants removed or deported since the election. We are not stopping there – tough new laws will demand that gig economy companies strengthen right to work checks for delivery drivers.”
Stuart’s Head of Legal, James Hall, refused to comment on “specific cases” but denied the platform was any easier to subvert.
“Stuart does carry out frequent facial recognition checks on courier accounts and other courier account compliance audits to ensure that couriers operating on our platform do so in accordance with our terms and conditions,” he said.
He added: “Any evidence of unauthorised account sharing is acted upon with courier accounts being offboarded from the platform.”
A Deliveroo spokesperson said the investigation “demonstrates the level of sustained criminality the delivery sector is facing, from a small minority of determined individuals”.
They added: “We have taken action to target those abusing our platform and all riders must now complete multiple facial recognition checks, triggered at random times each day. As a result we have offboarded thousands of suspicious rider accounts in recent months.”
A Just Eat spokesperson said: “Just Eat is fully committed to tackling all attempts to provide delivery services illegally via our platform – all couriers must have the right to work in the UK.
“We have substantially strengthened our systems against abuse, with daily facial recognition checks, and checks that are triggered when a new device is used to log in. We continue to work closely with the Home Office and industry partners to identify and address any potential methods of evading checks, as well as collaborating on data sharing and enforcement.”
An Uber Eats spokesperson said: “Uber Eats is deeply committed to tackling illegal work and the criminal networks who are often behind it.
“This includes introducing industry-leading identity and video verification technology to conduct randomised daily checks, as well as a robust set of tools that help us detect any attempts to bypass our checks.”
