A tycoon couple based in Dubai have made millions of pounds from the British taxpayer ferrying asylum seekers around the country in taxis.
Ashok Puri and his wife Manju run a number of companies in the UK, which include at least three that have had contracts to transport hotel migrants to see doctors and dentists and even to take them to airports.
The couple, who are believed to live in a luxury Dubai enclave dubbed the ‘Beverly Hills of the Middle East’, have one deal with a Home Office hotel contractor worth £4 million.
Five years ago, The Mail on Sunday revealed how another company the couple owned was paid £2 million by the same Home Office contractor to shuttle Channel migrants around the country.
The revelation comes as the Home Office on Saturday banned asylum seekers from using taxis, except in the most exceptional circumstances. The announcement was made as shock new figures revealed that taxpayers are paying nearly £16 million a year on taxi rides for migrants.
Some journeys have needlessly racked up hundreds of pounds, including a 250-mile round trip to see a GP that cost £600. Thousands of shorter journeys are being taken by migrants to doctors and dentists even though they could have caught buses or even walked.
One taxi firm revealed last week that £1,000 per day was being spent ferrying illegal migrants from a south-east London hotel to a GP’s surgery a few miles away.
Radio 4’s Today programme said on Saturday that the Home Office had told the BBC that the cost of all asylum transport amounts to an average of £15.8 million a year, but refused to reveal a specific figure for this year.
Ashok Puri and his wife Manju have made millions of pounds from the British taxpayer ferrying asylum seekers around the country in taxis
On Saturday the Home Office banned asylum seekers from using taxis, except in the most exceptional circumstances. Pictured: Migrants board a dinghy in the English Channel
It is feared the annual figure is now much higher as the numbers of illegal migrants in hotels rose from 32,000 in June to more than 36,000 in September.
One of the biggest contracts known is between a company called PTS-247 and the Home Office contractor Clearsprings, which is worth £4 million per year.
PTS-247, based in Crawley, West Sussex, has had a contract to transport asylum seekers for Clearsprings in the South-East and Wales for the past three years. Clearsprings, which has a ten-year contract with the Home Office projected to be worth £7 billion, provides around 30,000 asylum seekers accommodation.
It has been reported that PTS-247 has seen its profits soar in the three years since its contract with Clearsprings began, from £52,153 in the 2022/23 financial year to £586,762 in 2023/2024.
PTS-247 belongs to a parent company called Meco Maitha, which has also reported a pre-tax profit of £3.5 million in the latest financial year, according to Companies House records.
PTS-247 and Meco Maitha are owned by Ashok Puri, 70, and his wife Manju, 66, who are Kenyans of Indian origin. They have been living in Dubai since the 1980s.
Neither Clearsprings nor PTS-247 responded to this newspaper for comment on Saturday night.
In 2020, we reported how another cab firm called Evo Taxis was paid almost £2 million in two years to transport migrants in taxis. Companies House records show Evo Taxis was also owned by the Puris.
Additional reporting by Calum Muirhead.
