A DANGEROUS loophole is allowing migrants to work illegally for Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats using the details of legitimate staff, a Sun on Sunday investigation can reveal. Our undercover reporter posed as a recent Afghan migrant on Facebook forums dedicated to hiring food delivery drivers, to highlight how riders are subcontracting their accounts to people who do not have the right to work legally in the UK. Within minutes he was offered the log-ins for company apps so he could receive orders in return for a fee — without any checks on who the driver really was. We discovered some subcontract workers are migrants who are able to skip background checks and earn money illegally without the company they are riding for even being aware. This subcontracting practice, known as substituting, is accepted by the delivery firms and allowed under their terms and conditions. But no checks are made on who they are substituting to, and the loophole could be exploited by dangerous criminals to land jobs. In 2022 Hampshire delivery rider Jennifer Rocha bit off a customer’s thumb in a row over a pizza but continued working for Deliveroo, even after the account she was using at the time was suspended. The same year, convicted drug dealer Jordan Da Silva managed to work for Deliveroo. His past was only exposed when he posted a video of him unwrapping a female customer’s anti-fungal cream in front of her, and he was recognised on social media. In April, food delivery firms agreed to strengthen security checks to prevent illegal working. Deliveroo said it has launched a substitute registration feature including right-to-work checks, Uber Eats said it would be launching identity verification checks while Just Eat said it was trying to “develop a solution which will ensure couriers substituting their work do so in accordance with the law”. But after our reporter posted in the Facebook group asking to hire an account to do deliveries, he was offered Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat account details and log-ins for £70 to £100 a week, with no questions. The registered drivers assured our reporter he would easily make that fee back and could expect an average of 42 hours a week earning £600 — around £14 an hour — by downloading an app, using their details to log into the system and get work. One, Brian, agreed to hire out a Just Eat account for £140. He told our reporter it consisted of a £70 deposit and £70 for the first week’s use of the system, and said to take the cash to a run-down housing estate in Beckenham Hill, South London. When our reporter said he didn’t have a UK bank account, he said: “We will get paid every Wednesday and I can give you it in cash. You can easily make £100 daily, working seven to eight hours. If you make £600 I’ll take £70 rent and I’ll give you £530. Nobody is going to check or ask you for anything. This is anonymous work. Another user, Ricky, gave us an account to transfer £180 made up of an £80 deposit and £100 for the first week’s rental of his user details. We made no payment for any account. One Brazilian driver told us: “A person who has the right to work here opens as many accounts as possible, sometimes over 100. “From there, they offer these accounts to people who don’t have the right to work, then they work in another field that pays better, like construction. Illegal workers will happily accept a £3 order to an address three or four miles away.” Migrants are even boasting about using the substituting loophole to get work. One, from Chad in North Africa, detailed his journey to Europe in 2022 on TikTok. In one post he shared a Union Flag and a rowing boat, indicating he had reached the UK on an illegal small boat. And he showed the budget hotel near Heathrow Airport where he was living, and himself riding a bike carrying a Deliveroo bag, as well as buying designer gear. In another hotel in South East London, where small-boat migrants are living, a resident, 32, from Pakistan said: “There are people here working as delivery drivers, but I’m not one of them. I don’t know how they get jobs as we don’t have work permits.” And a Jordanian man, 53, said: “I want a job but I don’t have a work permit. If someone can find me a job as a delivery driver, I will take it.” We showed our findings to industry expert Alfie Pearce-Higgins, a Deliveroo rider since 2021, who campaigns for better pay transparency for workers. He said: “I’m not surprised by the scale of this — the practice is widespread. Anyone who wants an account can rent one easily without any checks. This undercuts the pay of legal, tax-paying drivers and can expose vulnerable people to exploitation. “There is a very simple solution — remove the right of substitution, as Deliveroo recently did in Hong Kong. In my experience most drivers, customers and restaurants and supermarkets would support this.” In 2023, a Home Office spot check found 42 per cent of riders were working illegally. Deliveroo and Uber Eats have more than 120,000 official UK riders between them and Just Eat has tens of thousands — suggesting if it reached that scale, at least 50,000 food delivery workers could be working illegally. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The leading delivery firms have made repeated commitments to stamp out the abuse of driver substitution, but it is clear from these revelations they have not gone far enough. “They need to get a grip on this fast as we cannot stand for this kind of abuse.” And Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “Our laws — including employment laws — should be respected. “The Government must urgently step up immigration enforcement and checks to stop illegal employment, including in the gig economy.” Our research shows counter-measures are having little effect. We even found gangs offering “all-inclusive” illegal work packages that can be booked before a person has even reached Britain. An Instagram post in Portuguese offers London accommodation, a motorcycle with insurance and fuel, an active Uber Eats account, plus food, for £500 a week, claiming it offers an £840 weekly profit. A West London delivery driver added: “Three or four I know of are visa overstayers renting accounts and making good money. I think the food delivery accounts are accelerating the boat arrivals and providing a stepping stone to integrate into communities faster.” WHEN a driver creates an account with a delivery firm, it checks their right to work, photo ID, Disclosure and Barring Service status for convictions, and insurance, if they are using a motorised vehicle. Drivers pay nothing to the firms when they create an account with them and there are no minimum working hours, which is why there is no real justification for substitutes. But all major firms allow substitutions, including Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat and Stuart. An Uber Eats spokesman said: “All couriers who use the Uber Eats app must undergo checks to ensure they have a legal right to work in the UK. "Uber Eats has worked with the Home Office to launch additional identity verification and Right to Work checks to help ensure only those who legitimately use someone else’s account to deliver on the platform are able to. “We are constantly reviewing these processes to ensure they are as robust as possible and if we receive reports that this is not the case we will investigate and take appropriate action.” A Deliveroo spokesman said: “We take a zero-tolerance approach towards any rider who fails to meet their legal obligations. “All riders have to have the Right to Work. If found to be in breach of their obligations, we will stop working with them with immediate effect. "We have taken action to secure our platform and were the first to roll out direct Right to Work checks, a registration process and identity verification for substitutes. “We are rolling out daily identity checks using facial recognition technology for all riders, including substitutes. "We take our responsibilities extremely seriously and are committed to strengthening our controls and preventing misuse of our platform, with additional checks planned for next year.” FOOD delivery workers claim they can make as much as £1,400 a week. Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat do not publicly advertise pay rates. But riders say they can earn large sums by picking the best-paying orders, working in areas with lots of restaurants, take-aways and grocery shops, and working at peak times. If they take multiple orders from the same place or from outlets in the same area, they can do multiple deliveries per hour. The delivery firm apps use an algorithm to determine earnings, depending on the number of orders collected, distance travelled and time taken to complete orders. The algorithm also sets pay rates, based on how many drivers are online. Jobs website Indeed states the average daily income of a Just Eat worker is £202, while Deliveroo riders average £14.99 per hour and Uber Eats drivers are estimated to earn up to £120 a day. One Just Eat worker boasted on Indeed the work was “so simple... I usually get around £15-£20 an hour”. An Uber Eats rider said they “easily earn over £500 per week working 40 hours”, while a Deliveroo rider claimed to have earned £1,400 in a week on a pedal bike, working 7am to 10.30pm. Drivers can also earn money by substituting.NFL will consider replay assist for facemask penalties and other playsPride, bragging rights and more than $115M at stake when final college playoff rankings come outUS sanctions the founder of Georgia's ruling political party
RALEIGH, N.C. — Bill Belichick, cutting the sleeves off an Alexander Julian plaid blazer. Bill Belichick, responding to boosters’ grinning back-slaps with a scowl and, “We’re on to Georgia Tech.” Bill Belichick, trying on Mack Brown’s old sideline puffy coat for size. Bill Belichick, being asked to shake the hand of a human dressed as a toaster pastry. Bill Belichick, adding the entire lacrosse team to the football roster to play special teams. Can you imagine? JONES ANGELL: “Welcome back everyone to Bill Belichick Live. Say, Bill, what’s your favorite appetizer here at Top of the Hill?” BELICHICK: “Yeah, I’m not going to discuss that.” North Carolina will miss out on all of that wonderful stuff if it doesn’t lock down a deal with Belichick to replace Brown as football coach, something that seemed imminent over the weekend but continues to dangle in the breeze. North Carolina should be so lucky as to have it fall apart. This already has disaster written all over it, from the too-many-cooks hiring process to the transparent competing leaks from each camp: Belichick to NFL insiders, the trustees and boosters to political reporters. This circus has a lot of clowns and no tent. Just when you think things couldn’t possibly get any more absurd at North Carolina than Brown burning a career’s worth of bridges in Chapel Hill by insisting he would be back next season only to be informed the next day he would not, here comes an NFL legend who couldn’t land an NFL job last cycle, with absolutely no NCAA experience in that lengthy career, as the top candidate to replace him. Imagine the kind of privileged bubble you’d have to live in to be able to convince yourself that, after firing a genial 73-year-old coach who seemed to be losing his grasp on the rapidly changing world of college football, a surly 72-year-old with little or no grasp on college football is the right guy to replace him. Why not dig up Knute Rockne’s corpse and drag it around, like Weekend at Bernie’s? This is such a bad idea that even if it were to happen and somehow work out, it would still be an objectively bad idea even with 20-20 hindsight. Even if no one else wants the job, whether for football reasons or having to submit TPS reports to eight different bosses, this is an absurd place to land. North Carolina is willing to settle for someone who counts as family because his dad was a Tar Heels assistant coach for three years some 70 years ago, who has spent one fall observing his son as an assistant coach at Washington and is therefore an expert on the college game despite actually never coaching in it, whose NFL dynasty fizzled as soon as Tom Brady tapped out, whose coaching tree has had little success. (Two branches of it actually sprouted in the ACC: Al Groh and Bill O’Brien). And forget about UNC for a second: With all the nonsense that comes along with being a college head coach, it’s fair to wonder whether Belichick has fully thought this through, either. Two words: Mayo bath. What’s in this for him? If he wants to prove his late decline in New England wasn’t a fluke, the NFL is the place to do that. Beating Charlotte doesn’t count toward breaking Don Shula’s record. Beating the Panthers does. Brown may have been out of coaching for a little while when he returned to North Carolina, but he at least had won something at the NCAA level, knew the school inside and out and was (and remains) as avuncular as Belichick is gruff. Once again, the folks in power at North Carolina fell in love with a big-name trophy coach, but Belichick’s name only means anything to people like them. The oldest recruits in this cycle were 12 years old when Belichick last won anything. These kids don’t even know who he is, other than maybe the guy whose dog was apparently drafting for him during COVID. In Belichick’s defense, he does know the game of football as well as anyone on the planet and wouldn’t take the job without the financial backing to buy a decent team — no doubt at the continued expense of funds for basketball, which just lost out on the nation’s top recruit to BYU of all places — and if he’s got any tricks left up his absent sleeves, he might be able to find inefficiencies in recruiting, the transfer portal and on the field that college coaches have heretofore missed. It’s not like there are any NCAA rules left to break. But that’s a lot of maybes, and there are fundamental aspects of the college game — like sucking up to high-school coaches, making nice with the faculty and getting players out of the film room to go to class — that would be entirely foreign to Belichick. Whereas an up-and-coming college coach might have been able to build on the foundation Brown left behind — Jeff Monken is still out there, and wouldn’t it be something if UNC eventually blundered into what might be the best possible hire — this feels like it would be a ground-up rebuild of the entire operation. If Belichick really did submit a 400-page blueprint, and nothing’s ever gone wrong with a lengthy manifesto from a guy known for wearing a hoodie, it certainly suggests so. There are only two reasons someone like Belichick wants a job like this: He’s running away from something, or he’s got no place else to go. Unlike Norman Dale at Hickory High, there’s no Jimmy Chitwood waiting in the wings to save him. If this falls through, both sides should be relieved, not aggrieved. ©2024 The News & Observer. Visit at newsobserver.com . Distributed at Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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The AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll is back every week throughout the season! Get the poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here . MARTIN, Tenn. (AP) — Tarence Guinyard scored 31 points as UT Martin beat Champion Christian 123-56 on Sunday night. Guinyard added eight rebounds and five assists for the Skyhawks (4-7). Josue Grullon scored 23 points while shooting 8 for 16, including 7 for 13 from beyond the arc and added eight rebounds. Matija Zuzic shot 6 for 14, including 5 for 12 from beyond the arc to finish with 17 points. The Tigers were led in scoring by Noah Brooks, who finished with 14 points and two blocks. Champion Christian, a member of the Association of Christian College Athletics, also got 11 points from Adrian Brown. KJ Younge finished with nine points and three steals. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .
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Copy link Copied Copy link Copied Subscribe to gift this article Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Already a subscriber? Login The soft voice helped. So did the weak chin and gawky height. Throw in the medical training in London, as well as the marriage to an urbane local, and it is small wonder that people were disarmed. Bashar al-Assad was no one’s idea of a despot. And when he freed some of Syria’s political prisoners in 2000, the West had more to go on than “vibes”. France gave him the Legion of Honour soon after. Financial Times Copy link Copied Copy link Copied Subscribe to gift this article Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Already a subscriber? Login Introducing your Newsfeed Follow the topics, people and companies that matter to you. Latest In Middle East Fetching latest articles Most Viewed In World