Just Eat delivery driver steals cat from customer’s building ‘to deal with mouse infestation at restaurant’

The pet was taken from a Paris apartment block on Tuesday evening, customer says

The Just Eat deliverer was captured on CCTV in a building in Paris carrying a cat on 9 March, 2021 (Caroline Simon-Provo)

A Just Eat delivery driver stole a cat from a customer’s building in Paris in order to deal with a mouse infestation at a restaurant, a customer has claimed.

Security footage of the incident seen by The Independent shows a man leaving the building in the French capital with a delivery bag and a cat in his arms on Tuesday evening.

The Just Eat customer, a trainee lawyer called Caroline Simon-Provo, said the cat belonged to her building’s concierge, who noticed the cat was missing shortly after the delivery took place.

“We called the police straight away the next morning after seeing the video,” Ms Simon-Provo told The Independent. “We also contacted Just Eat at 8am but didn’t hear anything from them so we went to the restaurant at 10:30 and waited until someone arrived.

“When the employees arrived they called the boss, who it turns out was the one who did the delivery the night before. He said he found the cat in the street and took it because he had mice in his restaurant, but the video clearly shows him leaving the building with the cat.”

The cat was found “shaking in a corner” of the restaurant and was returned to its rightful owner.

A spokesperson for Just Eat confirmed to The Independent that an investigation is underway and that the delivery was carried out by the restaurant itself.

“We hold ourselves to high standards and expect all of our restaurant partners to act responsibly at all times,” the spokesperson said.

“As such, we were concerned to hear about this incident. We are investigating this as a priority with the restaurant partner involved and are also speaking to the customer offline.”

The restaurant, a pizzeria in the west of Paris, was not available for comment. Ms Simon-Provo, who runs the anti cyber-bullying project CyberGuardian, only agreed to share the name of the restaurant on the condition that its name would not be published, as she fears online recrimination for the owner and staff.

The matter is now with the police and a formal complaint has been lodged.

“We didn’t hear back from Just Eat until 4pm, by which point the cat could have completely disappeared,” Ms Simon-Provo said.

“They took a long time to react when the situation was urgent. Luckily the cat is fine, that’s the main thing, but what a crazy story.”