Brad Song thought his electric bike was about to be stolen for the second time in less than a month after delivering an order for Chinese food app Fantuan Delivery. Seven strangers surrounded the Chinese immigrant and knocked him off his bike. He was rescued when a nearby motorist revved the engine, scaring the attackers away.
His brakes failed and the screen on a phone he uses for navigation was shattered, but while the February attack in New York shook Song, his bike and body were left intact.
Asylum seekers have gravitated toward working as food delivery riders in New York and other major cities, drawn by the abundance of clients and ease of getting started. But the work comes with dangers, particularly thieves who target food delivery bikes.
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Newly arrived asylum seekers have been easy targets. Some work without legal permission, which can make them afraid to seek help in an emergency.
Dissatisfied with the police response, many delivery men have joined forces.
Juan Solano, who emigrated from the Mexican state of Guerrero in 2017, founded El Diario de los Delivery Boys in the Big Apple, a group of deliverymen who help recover stolen electric bicycles, often with the help of monitoring devices. Launched during the pandemic, the group has more than 50,000 followers on Facebook and a WhatsApp channel to alert delivery drivers about robberies in real time.
Solano, 35, started working in food delivery during the pandemic with his nephew Sergio, who had his electric bike stolen twice.
Thieves appear to focus on isolated areas near bridges that connect Manhattan to other boroughs, especially those with less police presence. They particularly prey on those traveling alone.
A WhatsApp group called Alert Willis is dedicated to commuters who travel across the Willis Avenue Bridge that connects Manhattan to the Bronx.
Sergio Solano said he recently waited for other workers before crossing the Willis Avenue Bridge. After crossing, they turned back after hearing on their phones that someone else was being assaulted while traveling alone.
“The robber had some kind of weapon, but we decided to confront him anyway,” Solano said. Outnumbered, the person fled without the bike.
New York’s immigrant shelters have dozens, even hundreds, of scooters parked outside. The city estimates there are 65,000 food delivery workers — almost certainly an undercount — and an unknown percentage of them are recently arrived asylum seekers. The main requirement is an investment of $1,000 for a bicycle.
Asylum seekers must apply for a work permit, leading many to work under the names of people who do have work permits. Heisen Mao, a delivery driver and labor organizer, says drivers without work permits typically pay an account owner between $400 and $500 a month, or 20 percent of their income.
DoorDash spokesman Eli Scheinholtz said the company’s safeguards against fraudulent accounts include requiring periodic selfies to verify identity. The company said bike thefts are “extremely rare.” Uber spokesman Josh Gold said in a statement that it has similar anti-fraud measures in place. Fantuan says it verifies the identity of each of its drivers in person and alerts couriers of high-crime areas.
The New York Police Department reported 11,157 thefts of bicycles valued at $1,000 or more between 2018 and 2023, with sharp increases to a peak of nearly 3,000 in 2020, when supply chain issues created huge demand. The thefts are concentrated in certain areas, with lower Manhattan being the most frequent.
The consequences can be deadly. In 2021, Francisco Villalba, 29, was fatally shot in the chest for refusing to hand over his bike while taking a break at a playground. She had just made a DoorDash delivery in East Harlem. Her attacker was sentenced to 41 years in prison.
Tiburcio Castillo, 37, was fatally attacked on the Willis Bridge while riding his electric bike home from a food delivery shift in 2022. After an extensive search, his family found him at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, in a coma, where he died. No one has been arrested.
Police insist they have been on the lookout for robberies.
“The NYPD will respond to all calls for service and investigate all reported crimes, regardless of immigration status,” the agency said in a statement.
New York began experiencing a large surge in migrants in the spring of 2022, after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began busing migrants in at his state’s expense. The city now estimates it is home to about 195,000 newly arrived migrants.
Song, 30, arrived in New York in July 2023 amid a major surge of Chinese nationals reaching the United States via a relatively new and dangerous route that has become increasingly popular with the help of social media. They first fly to Quito, Ecuador. Chinese are the fourth-largest nationality of migrants, after Venezuelans, Ecuadorians and Haitians, crossing the Darien region between Colombia and Panama, according to Panamanian government data.
Chinese asylum seekers say they are seeking to escape an increasingly repressive political climate and bleak economic prospects.
Song had his first electric bike stolen from the sidewalk while he was taking a lunch break. The second robbery, which was foiled, was in East Flushing, Queens, just a month later.
“I shudder to think what would have happened if they had pulled out a knife or a gun,” Song said.
In the end, Song decided to buy a car to make deliveries.
Gustavo, an asylum seeker from Venezuela who lives in the former Roosevelt Hotel, a city-run shelter, switched to a moped after his electric bike was stolen 15 days after he started delivering food. He reported it to the police, without success.
Fidel Luna, who has delivered food for a restaurant in upper Manhattan since arriving in New York from Mexico in 2020, tracked his stolen electric bike to a building in January and immediately notified police. He said his repeated questions to police went unanswered.
Police declined to comment on his case.
Luna, 29, borrowed her brother’s bike to continue working.
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