Black market trade in IDs that lets small boat migrants work illegally

A BLACK market network funnelling illegal migrants into jobs with major food delivery firms has been infiltrated by the Express.

- BY ZAK GARNER-PURKIS

Our investigation reveals how easily men arriving on small boats can secure work within days of landing in Britain, despite a government-ordered crackdown only months ago.

We uncovered middlemen openly boasting about bypassing facial recognition checks and touting for clients in online forums with up to 40,000 members.

Posing as the relative of a small boat migrant housed in a Home Office hotel, an Express reporter was offered multiple illegal jobs via Facebook adverts.

One fixer even handed over access to a courier account, allowing the reporter's asylum seeker "cousin" to start delivering goods in breach of immigration and employment rules.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said it "beggared belief" such practices were still going on nearly six months after the government summoned Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats to Downing Street and set them a 90-day deadline to end illegal working on their platforms. He said: "Labour promised a crackdown, but it's clear illegal immigrants are still exploiting loopholes. The Labour government must get a grip."

Reform UK MP Lee Anderson said: "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."

During the summer, the Express exposed how asylum seekers were brazenly being employed as couriers despite not having any legal right to work, and spoke to legitimate drivers whose earnings were squeezed as a result.