The Reasons Our Team Went Covert to Uncover Crime in the Kurdish-origin Community

A pair of Kurdish-background men consented to operate secretly to expose a operation behind unlawful High Street enterprises because the lawbreakers are damaging the standing of Kurdish people in the United Kingdom, they explain.

The two, who we are calling Saman and Ali, are Kurdish-origin journalists who have both lived lawfully in the UK for years.

Investigators discovered that a Kurdish-linked crime network was operating small shops, barbershops and vehicle cleaning services throughout the UK, and wanted to discover more about how it worked and who was involved.

Prepared with secret recording devices, Ali and Saman posed as Kurdish-origin refugee applicants with no authorization to work, looking to acquire and manage a mini-mart from which to trade unlawful cigarettes and electronic cigarettes.

They were able to uncover how easy it is for a person in these circumstances to set up and run a commercial operation on the main street in public view. The individuals participating, we discovered, compensate Kurds who have UK residency to register the operations in their names, assisting to deceive the officials.

Ali and Saman also managed to discreetly record one of those at the core of the organization, who asserted that he could erase official sanctions of up to £60k faced those employing illegal employees.

"Personally sought to play a role in revealing these unlawful practices [...] to say that they don't speak for Kurdish people," explains one reporter, a former asylum seeker himself. Saman entered the UK illegally, having escaped from Kurdistan - a region that spans the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not officially recognized as a country - because his safety was at threat.

The reporters recognize that disagreements over illegal migration are elevated in the UK and state they have both been concerned that the investigation could intensify conflicts.

But Ali explains that the illegal labor "negatively affects the entire Kurdish population" and he considers obligated to "bring it [the criminal network] out into public view".

Furthermore, Ali mentions he was concerned the reporting could be seized upon by the radical right.

He explains this especially struck him when he noticed that radical right activist Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom march was occurring in London on one of the weekends he was operating covertly. Signs and banners could be spotted at the protest, showing "we demand our country returned".

The reporters have both been observing social media reaction to the inquiry from inside the Kurdish population and explain it has sparked strong anger for some. One social media message they observed read: "In what way can we locate and locate [the undercover reporters] to attack them like dogs!"

One more urged their relatives in Kurdistan to be slaughtered.

They have also read claims that they were informants for the UK government, and traitors to other Kurdish people. "Both of us are not informants, and we have no aim of hurting the Kurdish-origin community," one reporter explains. "Our aim is to expose those who have harmed its image. We are proud of our Kurdish-origin identity and extremely troubled about the actions of such people."

The majority of those applying for refugee status claim they are fleeing politically motivated oppression, according to Ibrahim Avicil from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, a non-profit that helps asylum seekers and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the situation for our covert journalist one investigator, who, when he initially came to the UK, struggled for many years. He states he had to live on less than twenty pounds a per week while his refugee application was processed.

Asylum seekers now get approximately forty-nine pounds a per week - or £9.95 if they are in shelter which offers meals, according to government regulations.

"Honestly saying, this isn't enough to support a respectable life," explains the expert from the the organization.

Because refugee applicants are largely prohibited from working, he thinks numerous are open to being manipulated and are practically "forced to labor in the illegal market for as little as £3 per hourly rate".

A representative for the government department stated: "We do not apologize for not granting asylum seekers the permission to work - doing so would create an reason for people to migrate to the UK without authorization."

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

Saman says being employed without authorization in a vehicle cleaning service, barbershop or convenience store would have been quite easy to achieve, but he informed us he would never have done that.

Nonetheless, he explains that those he met laboring in unauthorized mini-marts during his investigation seemed "lost", notably those whose asylum claim has been rejected and who were in the appeal stage.

"They used all their money to travel to the United Kingdom, they had their refugee application refused and now they've lost all they had."

The other reporter acknowledges that these people seemed hopeless.

"When [they] say you're forbidden to work - but simultaneously [you]