Why Our Team Went Covert to Uncover Criminal Activity in the Kurdish Community

Two Kurdish-background men consented to work covertly to expose a operation behind illegal commercial enterprises because the lawbreakers are damaging the standing of Kurdish people in the UK, they state.

The pair, who we are calling Ali and Saman, are Kurdish-origin reporters who have both lived lawfully in the United Kingdom for a long time.

The team uncovered that a Kurdish criminal operation was running small shops, hair salons and car washes across Britain, and aimed to discover more about how it worked and who was involved.

Equipped with hidden cameras, Ali and Saman posed as Kurdish-origin refugee applicants with no authorization to be employed, seeking to buy and run a mini-mart from which to trade unlawful cigarettes and vapes.

They were able to discover how easy it is for an individual in these conditions to establish and manage a enterprise on the High Street in public view. The individuals participating, we found, pay Kurds who have British citizenship to legally establish the businesses in their identities, enabling to mislead the authorities.

Saman and Ali also were able to secretly record one of those at the centre of the network, who asserted that he could eliminate government sanctions of up to sixty thousand pounds encountered those using unauthorized employees.

"Personally wanted to contribute in uncovering these illegal operations [...] to say that they do not represent our community," says one reporter, a former refugee applicant himself. The reporter entered the United Kingdom illegally, having escaped from the Kurdish region - a area that straddles the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not internationally recognised as a country - because his life was at threat.

The journalists recognize that conflicts over illegal immigration are high in the United Kingdom and say they have both been worried that the probe could worsen conflicts.

But Ali states that the illegal labor "damages the entire Kurdish community" and he believes driven to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into public view".

Separately, Ali mentions he was anxious the coverage could be used by the far-right.

He explains this particularly struck him when he realized that radical right campaigner a prominent activist's Unite the Kingdom protest was happening in London on one of the weekends he was operating undercover. Placards and banners could be observed at the protest, displaying "we demand our country back".

Both journalists have both been tracking online feedback to the inquiry from inside the Kurdish-origin community and say it has generated intense anger for certain individuals. One Facebook comment they spotted stated: "In what way can we find and locate [the undercover reporters] to attack them like animals!"

A different called for their relatives in the Kurdish region to be slaughtered.

They have also encountered allegations that they were informants for the UK authorities, and betrayers to other Kurdish people. "Both of us are not informants, and we have no desire of damaging the Kurdish-origin population," one reporter states. "Our objective is to reveal those who have compromised its standing. Both journalists are proud of our Kurdish-origin heritage and deeply troubled about the actions of such people."

The majority of those applying for refugee status say they are fleeing political oppression, according to an expert from the a charitable organization, a non-profit that assists refugees and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the case for our covert journalist one investigator, who, when he initially came to the United Kingdom, faced difficulties for many years. He says he had to survive on less than twenty pounds a per week while his asylum claim was reviewed.

Asylum seekers now are provided about forty-nine pounds a per week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in shelter which includes meals, according to official policies.

"Honestly stating, this is not sufficient to sustain a respectable life," states the expert from the the organization.

Because asylum seekers are largely prohibited from working, he thinks a significant number are open to being exploited and are practically "forced to work in the illegal sector for as little as three pounds per hour".

A representative for the government department stated: "The government are unapologetic for not granting refugee applicants the permission to be employed - granting this would generate an incentive for individuals to come to the UK without authorization."

Refugee applications can take years to be processed with approximately a third taking over one year, according to official figures from the end of March this current year.

Saman explains being employed illegally in a vehicle cleaning service, hair salon or convenience store would have been quite easy to do, but he told us he would not have engaged in that.

Nevertheless, he states that those he encountered working in unauthorized mini-marts during his research seemed "lost", especially those whose refugee application has been refused and who were in the appeal stage.

"They spent their entire money to migrate to the UK, they had their asylum denied and now they've sacrificed all they had."

Ali agrees that these people seemed in dire straits.

"When [they] declare you're not allowed to work - but also [you]