Why Our Team Went Covert to Expose Crime in the Kurdish Community

Two Kurdish men decided to work covertly to uncover a organization behind illegal High Street enterprises because the criminals are causing harm the standing of Kurdish people in the United Kingdom, they say.

The pair, who we are referring to as Saman and Ali, are Kurdish-origin reporters who have both lived lawfully in the UK for a long time.

Investigators found that a Kurdish criminal operation was operating mini-marts, barbershops and vehicle cleaning services the length of the United Kingdom, and aimed to discover more about how it worked and who was involved.

Equipped with secret recording devices, Saman and Ali posed as Kurdish refugee applicants with no permission to work, seeking to purchase and manage a small shop from which to trade illegal tobacco products and electronic cigarettes.

They were able to discover how easy it is for an individual in these situations to start and manage a commercial operation on the commercial area in public view. The individuals involved, we discovered, compensate Kurds who have UK residency to register the businesses in their identities, assisting to mislead the government agencies.

Saman and Ali also succeeded to secretly record one of those at the centre of the network, who asserted that he could remove government penalties of up to sixty thousand pounds imposed on those using illegal laborers.

"Personally sought to play a role in revealing these unlawful operations [...] to say that they do not characterize Kurdish people," says one reporter, a ex- asylum seeker himself. Saman entered the United Kingdom without authorization, having fled the Kurdish region - a area that spans the boundaries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not globally acknowledged as a nation - because his life was at threat.

The journalists acknowledge that disagreements over unauthorized immigration are significant in the UK and explain they have both been concerned that the inquiry could inflame tensions.

But Ali says that the illegal working "harms the entire Kurdish-origin community" and he considers driven to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into public view".

Separately, Ali mentions he was worried the publication could be exploited by the far-right.

He states this particularly affected him when he discovered that far-right campaigner a prominent activist's national unity protest was taking place in London on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was working undercover. Banners and flags could be spotted at the rally, reading "we demand our nation back".

Both journalists have both been monitoring social media reaction to the exposé from within the Kurdish-origin population and explain it has sparked strong anger for some. One social media comment they spotted said: "How can we identify and find [the undercover reporters] to kill them like animals!"

One more urged their families in the Kurdish region to be slaughtered.

They have also read claims that they were spies for the British authorities, and traitors to other Kurdish people. "We are not informants, and we have no aim of damaging the Kurdish population," one reporter says. "Our goal is to expose those who have harmed its reputation. We are proud of our Kurdish-origin heritage and extremely worried about the behavior of such individuals."

Most of those applying for asylum claim they are escaping politically motivated oppression, according to Ibrahim Avicil from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, a charity that supports asylum seekers and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the case for our undercover journalist one investigator, who, when he initially came to the United Kingdom, experienced challenges for many years. He says he had to survive on less than twenty pounds a week while his refugee application was considered.

Asylum seekers now are provided approximately £49 a per week - or £9.95 if they are in accommodation which includes meals, according to government regulations.

"Practically saying, this isn't sufficient to sustain a respectable lifestyle," says the expert from the RWCA.

Because asylum seekers are mostly restricted from employment, he believes many are susceptible to being exploited and are essentially "forced to work in the illegal market for as low as £3 per hourly rate".

A official for the authorities stated: "We are unapologetic for refusing to grant asylum seekers the right to work - doing so would generate an motivation for people to migrate to the UK without authorization."

Refugee applications can take years to be processed with approximately a one-third requiring more than one year, according to government figures from the end of March this current year.

The reporter states being employed illegally in a vehicle cleaning service, barbershop or mini-mart would have been very easy to accomplish, but he informed us he would never have done that.

However, he states that those he encountered employed in unauthorized mini-marts during his work seemed "confused", especially those whose refugee application has been refused and who were in the legal challenge.

"These individuals expended all of their savings to migrate to the United Kingdom, they had their asylum rejected and now they've sacrificed all they had."

Ali acknowledges that these people seemed hopeless.

"If [they] declare you're forbidden to work - but additionally [you]