.svg)
A wealthy couple residing in a luxury Dubai enclave have earned millions of pounds from the British public purse by operating taxi services for asylum seekers, a practice the Home Office has now vowed to end in a sweeping crackdown on government waste, Daily Dazzling Dawn realized.
Ashok Puri, 70, and his wife Manju, 66, run a network of companies that have secured lucrative subcontracts to ferry migrants from government-funded hotels to medical appointments, airports, and administrative centers. The couple, who live in the Emirates Hills—often referred to as the ‘Beverly Hills of the Middle East’—have seen their fortunes rise while the UK government struggled to contain spiraling asylum costs.
The scale of the expenditure was laid bare this weekend as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced an immediate ban on the routine use of taxis for asylum seekers. The move follows the revelation that taxpayers have been footing a bill of nearly £16 million annually for these journeys, many of which could have been completed via public transport or on foot.
Under the new directives, effective from February, the use of private hire vehicles will be strictly limited to exceptional circumstances, such as for individuals with severe physical disabilities or pregnancy-related needs. The decision comes amid mounting public anger over examples of profligacy, including a documented 250-mile round trip for a general practitioner appointment that cost the taxpayer £600.
One of the primary beneficiaries of this spending has been PTS-247, a Crawley-based logistics firm owned by the Puris. The company holds a multimillion-pound arrangement with Clearsprings Ready Homes, a major government contractor with a ten-year deal worth an estimated £7 billion to manage asylum accommodation.
Financial filings indicate that the business of transporting migrants has been exceptionally profitable for the Dubai-based duo. PTS-247 reported a tenfold increase in profits over a single year, rising from just over £52,000 in 2022 to nearly £587,000 in the 2023/24 financial year. Their parent company, Meco Maitha, declared a pre-tax profit of £3.5 million for the same period.
This is not the first time the Puris have profited from the Home Office’s logistical challenges. Five years ago, another of their ventures, Evo Taxis, was paid £2 million over two years for similar transport services. The recurring nature of these contracts has raised serious questions about the government's procurement processes and oversight of subcontractors who operate with high profit margins while the public sector faces austerity.
The issue extends beyond a single firm. Investigations have uncovered that some taxi operators were charging the Home Office up to £1,000 per day to shuttle migrants short distances. In one egregious instance cited by investigators, a firm billed the taxpayer for repeatedly driving individuals from a south-east London hotel to a surgery just a few miles away, a route easily serviced by local buses.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood condemned the spending patterns inherited from the previous administration, describing the contracts as a mechanism that was "wasting billions of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash." She stated that the unrestricted use of taxis was symptomatic of a chaotic asylum system and pledged to root out waste as the government moves to close asylum hotels entirely.
The reliance on private contractors like Clearsprings and their subcontractors has been a focal point of criticism. Clearsprings saw its own profits surge to £62.5 million in the last financial year, driven largely by the sheer volume of asylum seekers requiring housing and transport. With the number of migrants in hotels rising from 32,000 in June to over 36,000 in September, the demand for these services had created a boom industry for private firms before the recent intervention.
Critics argue that the convoluted supply chain, where main contractors subcontract to smaller firms like PTS-247, creates layers of profit-taking that obscure the true value for money being delivered to the taxpayer. While the Puris enjoy their life in the UAE, far removed from the political fallout in Westminster, the UK government faces the difficult task of untangling these expensive commercial agreements.
Neither Clearsprings nor PTS-247 responded immediately to requests for comment regarding the profitability of their contracts or the new government restrictions. As the ban comes into force, the Home Office has signaled that this is merely the first step in a broader strategy to dismantle the "asylum industry" that has enriched private operators at the public's expense.
The focus now shifts to how quickly the government can transition thousands of daily journeys to public transport without incurring further logistical chaos, and whether the millions flowing to offshore accounts will finally be stemmed.
