Why We Chose to Go Covert to Reveal Criminal Activity in the Kurdish-origin Population

A pair of Kurdish individuals decided to work covertly to uncover a operation behind unlawful High Street businesses because the lawbreakers are negatively affecting the standing of Kurdish people in the Britain, they say.

The pair, who we are referring to as Ali and Saman, are Kurdish investigators who have both lived lawfully in the United Kingdom for a long time.

The team uncovered that a Kurdish illegal enterprise was operating small shops, hair salons and vehicle cleaning services throughout the UK, and sought to find out more about how it worked and who was taking part.

Equipped with hidden cameras, Ali and Saman posed as Kurdish-origin refugee applicants with no right to be employed, attempting to acquire and operate a convenience store from which to trade unlawful cigarettes and vapes.

The investigators were successful to reveal how straightforward it is for an individual in these conditions to establish and manage a commercial operation on the commercial area in plain sight. Those involved, we discovered, pay Kurds who have UK residency to legally establish the enterprises in their identities, enabling to mislead the officials.

Saman and Ali also succeeded to discreetly record one of those at the heart of the network, who asserted that he could erase official penalties of up to sixty thousand pounds imposed on those hiring illegal workers.

"I wanted to contribute in revealing these unlawful operations [...] to say that they don't characterize our community," states one reporter, a former refugee applicant himself. The reporter entered the UK illegally, having escaped from the Kurdish region - a area that spans the boundaries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not officially recognized as a state - because his well-being was at danger.

The journalists recognize that disagreements over illegal immigration are significant in the UK and explain they have both been concerned that the probe could intensify conflicts.

But the other reporter explains that the unauthorized labor "damages the whole Kurdish-origin community" and he believes compelled to "expose it [the criminal network] out into broad daylight".

Separately, Ali says he was concerned the reporting could be exploited by the extreme right.

He says this especially affected him when he realized that radical right campaigner Tommy Robinson's national unity rally was taking place in the capital on one of the weekends he was working secretly. Signs and banners could be spotted at the rally, reading "we want our nation returned".

Saman and Ali have both been tracking social media response to the inquiry from within the Kurdish population and explain it has generated intense frustration for some. One Facebook message they found stated: "In what way can we identify and track [the undercover reporters] to harm them like dogs!"

One more called for their relatives in Kurdistan to be slaughtered.

They have also encountered accusations that they were spies for the British government, and betrayers to other Kurdish people. "Both of us are not informants, and we have no desire of hurting the Kurdish community," one reporter states. "Our objective is to uncover those who have harmed its standing. Both journalists are proud of our Kurdish-origin heritage and extremely troubled about the behavior of such individuals."

Most of those applying for asylum say they are fleeing political discrimination, according to an expert from the a refugee support organization, a non-profit that assists refugees and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom.

This was the case for our covert reporter Saman, who, when he initially arrived to the UK, faced difficulties for many years. He explains he had to live on under twenty pounds a week while his refugee application was reviewed.

Asylum seekers now are provided about £49 a per week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in housing which offers meals, according to Home Office regulations.

"Realistically speaking, this isn't adequate to sustain a acceptable lifestyle," states the expert from the the organization.

Because asylum seekers are mostly prohibited from working, he feels a significant number are open to being taken advantage of and are effectively "obligated to labor in the unofficial market for as low as three pounds per hour".

A official for the Home Office commented: "We make no apology for denying refugee applicants the permission to be employed - doing so would create an reason for people to travel to the UK without authorization."

Asylum applications can require years to be processed with almost a third taking more than a year, according to official statistics from the spring this current year.

Saman explains working illegally in a vehicle cleaning service, hair salon or convenience store would have been quite easy to achieve, but he told us he would never have engaged in that.

However, he states that those he met employed in illegal convenience stores during his investigation seemed "disoriented", especially those whose refugee application has been refused and who were in the appeal stage.

"These individuals spent all of their savings to migrate to the United Kingdom, they had their asylum refused and now they've lost all they had."

The other reporter concurs that these people seemed desperate.

"If [they] declare you're not allowed to be employed - but additionally [you]