Deliveroo PLC (LSE:ROO), Just Eat Takeaway.com NV (LSE:JET, NASDAQ:GRUB) and Uber Eats could face fines after several of their delivery drivers were arrested in London and the south of England as part of a Home Office crackdown on supposed illegal immigrants.
Around 60 learner-plated moped riders were arrested by police over six days, leading to almost three-quarters of them being detained by the Home Office.
A Deliveroo spokesperson said all riders must have the right to work in the UK in order to have an account with the company.
Employers can be jailed for five years and pay an unlimited fine if they are found guilty of employing someone they knew or had “reasonable cause to believe” did not have the right to work in the UK, with fines of up to £20,000 per illegal worker.
Based on intelligence-gathering by immigration officers, the Home Office claimed there has been an increase in immigration offences by gig economy workers in London.
Home secretary Suella Braverman said: "Illegal working damages our communities, cheats honest workers out of employment and defrauds the public purse."
The arrests have been criticised by the trade union that represents the industry's zero-hours contract workers.
It is "not the role of the police to make immigration checks on the streets in this way", the App Drivers and Couriers Union's general secretary James Farrar told the Evening Standard newspaper.
The union said delivery workers are already very vulnerable due to their risk of exposure to modern slavery, he said.
The Met Police are destroying the trust of workers, he said, calling for a "more pragmatic and more effective approach" cooperating with trade unions who represent these workers.
The Home Office detained 44 of the arrested individuals, many from Brazil, with others from India and Algeria, pending potential deportation from the UK, with the government department expecting several of the cases to lead to "voluntary departure from the UK".