The Reasons Our Team Chose to Go Undercover to Expose Criminal Activity in the Kurdish Population

A pair of Kurdish-background men agreed to work covertly to expose a operation behind unlawful High Street businesses because the lawbreakers are negatively affecting the standing of Kurds in the UK, they say.

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

Investigators found that a Kurdish-linked illegal enterprise was running mini-marts, hair salons and car washes across Britain, and aimed to discover more about how it worked and who was taking part.

Equipped with covert recording devices, Saman and Ali presented themselves as Kurdish-origin asylum seekers with no authorization to be employed, seeking to acquire and operate a convenience store from which to sell illegal tobacco products and electronic cigarettes.

The investigators were able to reveal how easy it is for an individual in these circumstances to set up and manage a enterprise on the High Street in plain sight. Those involved, we discovered, compensate Kurdish individuals who have UK citizenship to register the operations in their identities, helping to fool the authorities.

Ali and Saman also succeeded to secretly record one of those at the heart of the operation, who claimed that he could eliminate government fines of up to £60,000 faced those using unauthorized workers.

"I aimed to participate in uncovering these unlawful activities [...] to declare that they don't represent our community," says Saman, a former refugee applicant himself. Saman entered the UK without authorization, having escaped from Kurdistan - a territory that straddles the boundaries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not globally acknowledged as a country - because his well-being was at danger.

The journalists acknowledge that disagreements over unauthorized migration are significant in the United Kingdom and state they have both been anxious that the probe could inflame tensions.

But the other reporter states that the illegal working "negatively affects the entire Kurdish community" and he considers driven to "bring it [the criminal network] out into broad daylight".

Additionally, Ali mentions he was anxious the coverage could be exploited by the radical right.

He states this particularly struck him when he noticed that radical right activist a prominent activist's national unity protest was occurring in London on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was operating covertly. Signs and flags could be seen at the protest, displaying "we want our country back".

Saman and Ali have both been monitoring online reaction to the inquiry from inside the Kurdish-origin community and explain it has caused strong outrage for some. One social media comment they observed stated: "In what way can we identify and track [the undercover reporters] to attack them like animals!"

A different urged their families in Kurdistan to be slaughtered.

They have also encountered claims that they were agents for the British government, and traitors to other Kurds. "Both of us are not informants, and we have no intention of hurting the Kurdish community," one reporter explains. "Our objective is to uncover those who have compromised its image. Both journalists are honored of our Kurdish heritage and profoundly worried about the behavior of such individuals."

The majority of those applying for refugee status claim they are fleeing politically motivated discrimination, according to Ibrahim Avicil from the a charitable organization, a organization that helps refugees and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the situation for our covert journalist Saman, who, when he initially came to the UK, experienced challenges for years. He states he had to survive 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 includes meals, according to government regulations.

"Practically speaking, this isn't adequate to support a respectable life," says Mr Avicil from the RWCA.

Because asylum seekers are largely prohibited from working, he believes numerous are susceptible to being manipulated and are effectively "compelled to work in the black economy for as low as three pounds per hourly rate".

A representative for the Home Office commented: "The government are unapologetic for refusing to grant refugee applicants the right to work - granting this would generate an motivation for people to come to the UK illegally."

Refugee cases can require years to be resolved with nearly a 33% requiring more than one year, according to government figures from the spring this current year.

The reporter states being employed without authorization in a car wash, barbershop or mini-mart would have been quite simple to accomplish, but he informed the team he would never have engaged in that.

Nevertheless, he says that those he interviewed working in illegal mini-marts during his investigation seemed "lost", notably those whose asylum claim has been rejected and who were in the appeal stage.

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

The other reporter acknowledges that these people seemed desperate.

"If [they] state you're prohibited to work - but simultaneously [you]