Why Our Team Went Undercover to Uncover Criminal Activity in the Kurdish-origin Population

Two Kurdish-background individuals decided to operate secretly to uncover a organization behind illegal main street establishments because the wrongdoers are causing harm the reputation of Kurds in the United Kingdom, they explain.

The pair, who we are referring to as Saman and Ali, are Kurdish-origin journalists who have both lived legally in the United Kingdom for years.

Investigators found that a Kurdish crime network was running small shops, hair salons and vehicle cleaning services the length of the United Kingdom, and sought to discover more about how it operated and who was involved.

Equipped with covert recording devices, Saman and Ali presented themselves as Kurdish refugee applicants with no authorization to work, attempting to purchase and operate a convenience store from which to sell unlawful tobacco products and vapes.

The investigators were able to discover how easy it is for a person in these conditions to establish and run a business on the main street in public view. The individuals involved, we discovered, compensate Kurdish individuals who have UK citizenship to register the enterprises in their names, enabling to mislead the authorities.

Ali and Saman also succeeded to secretly record one of those at the centre of the network, who claimed that he could erase government sanctions of up to sixty thousand pounds faced those using illegal workers.

"Personally sought to play a role in exposing these unlawful operations [...] to loudly proclaim that they do not speak for us," states one reporter, a ex- refugee applicant personally. Saman came to the country illegally, having escaped from the Kurdish region - a area that spans the boundaries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not internationally recognised as a nation - because his life was at danger.

The journalists admit that tensions over illegal migration are high in the UK and say they have both been anxious that the investigation could intensify tensions.

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

Furthermore, the journalist mentions he was anxious the publication could be exploited by the radical right.

He explains this especially struck him when he discovered that radical right campaigner a prominent activist's national unity rally was taking place in the capital on one of the weekends he was operating covertly. Banners and banners could be spotted at the protest, showing "we demand our country returned".

Both journalists have both been monitoring online response to the inquiry from inside the Kurdish-origin community and explain it has generated strong anger for certain individuals. One Facebook message they spotted read: "In what way can we identify and find [the undercover reporters] to harm them like animals!"

Another called for their relatives in the Kurdish region to be harmed.

They have also encountered claims that they were informants for the British authorities, and traitors to fellow Kurds. "We are not spies, and we have no desire of harming the Kurdish-origin population," Saman explains. "Our goal is to uncover those who have compromised its reputation. Both journalists are honored of our Kurdish-origin heritage and deeply troubled about the behavior of such persons."

The majority of those seeking refugee status say they are fleeing political oppression, according to an expert from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, a non-profit that assists asylum seekers and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the case for our covert journalist one investigator, who, when he initially came to the UK, struggled for many years. He says he had to live on under £20 a per week while his asylum claim was considered.

Asylum seekers now get approximately forty-nine pounds a week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in housing which offers meals, according to government guidance.

"Practically speaking, this is not sufficient to support a dignified life," says Mr Avicil from the RWCA.

Because refugee applicants are mostly prohibited from working, he believes a significant number are vulnerable to being taken advantage of and are essentially "forced to labor in the black sector for as low as three pounds per hourly rate".

A spokesperson for the government department stated: "The government are unapologetic for not granting asylum seekers the authorization to be employed - doing so would create an incentive for people to migrate to the United Kingdom without authorization."

Refugee applications can require a long time to be processed with approximately a one-third requiring over one year, according to government statistics from the end of March this year.

Saman states being employed without authorization in a vehicle cleaning service, hair salon or convenience store would have been quite simple to accomplish, but he told us he would never have engaged in that.

However, he states that those he encountered employed in illegal convenience stores during his research seemed "lost", especially those whose asylum claim has been denied and who were in the appeals process.

"These individuals expended their entire funds to travel to the United Kingdom, they had their asylum rejected and now they've lost everything."

Ali concurs that these people seemed hopeless.

"If [they] state you're not allowed to be employed - but simultaneously [you]