The Reasons We Chose to Go Undercover to Uncover Criminal Activity in the Kurdish Population

A pair of Kurdish-background individuals decided to work covertly to uncover a organization behind illegal High Street businesses because the lawbreakers are negatively affecting the image of Kurdish people in the United Kingdom, they say.

The pair, who we are calling Ali and Saman, are Kurdish journalists who have both lived lawfully in the United Kingdom for years.

The team discovered that a Kurdish criminal operation was running mini-marts, hair salons and car washes across Britain, and wanted to learn more about how it operated and who was involved.

Equipped with secret cameras, Ali and Saman posed as Kurdish-origin refugee applicants with no right to work, seeking to buy and manage a small shop from which to sell unlawful cigarettes and vapes.

The investigators were able to reveal how straightforward it is for an individual in these conditions to start and run a enterprise on the main street in public view. Those involved, we learned, pay Kurds who have British citizenship to legally establish the operations in their names, enabling to mislead the authorities.

Saman and Ali also managed to discreetly film one of those at the heart of the network, who asserted that he could remove government fines of up to sixty thousand pounds faced those hiring illegal workers.

"Personally wanted to contribute in revealing these unlawful practices [...] to declare that they don't speak for us," says one reporter, a former asylum seeker himself. Saman entered the country without authorization, having fled Kurdistan - a territory that straddles the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not officially recognized as a country - because his life was at threat.

The investigators admit that conflicts over illegal migration are high in the UK and say they have both been concerned that the probe could inflame conflicts.

But Ali explains that the illegal labor "harms the whole Kurdish-origin community" and he believes compelled to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into the open".

Additionally, Ali says he was anxious the coverage could be used by the extreme right.

He explains this especially struck him when he noticed that extreme right campaigner Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom protest was taking place in London on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was working undercover. Signs and banners could be observed at the gathering, reading "we want our nation returned".

Saman and Ali have both been tracking social media reaction to the investigation from inside the Kurdish population and report it has caused strong frustration for some. One Facebook comment they spotted stated: "How can we find and track [the undercover reporters] to kill them like animals!"

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

They have also seen allegations that they were agents for the British authorities, and traitors to fellow Kurds. "Both of us are not informants, and we have no intention of damaging the Kurdish-origin community," Saman states. "Our goal is to uncover those who have damaged its image. We are honored of our Kurdish identity and deeply concerned about the behavior of such individuals."

The majority of those applying for asylum claim they are fleeing political oppression, according to an expert from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, a organization that assists refugees and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom.

This was the scenario for our undercover reporter Saman, who, when he first arrived to the UK, faced difficulties for many years. He says he had to live on less than twenty pounds a week while his asylum claim was reviewed.

Refugee applicants now are provided about forty-nine pounds a week - or £9.95 if they are in shelter which includes meals, according to government policies.

"Practically speaking, this is not sufficient to support a acceptable life," states the expert from the RWCA.

Because asylum seekers are mostly restricted from working, he thinks many are vulnerable to being taken advantage of and are effectively "forced to labor in the black economy for as little as three pounds per hour".

A representative for the authorities commented: "The government are unapologetic for denying asylum seekers the authorization to be employed - granting this would create an reason for people to migrate to the UK without authorization."

Asylum applications can take a long time to be decided with nearly a 33% taking over one year, according to official data from the late March this current year.

The reporter explains being employed without authorization in a vehicle cleaning service, hair salon or mini-mart would have been quite straightforward to achieve, but he explained to us he would never have done that.

Nonetheless, he explains that those he interviewed employed in illegal mini-marts during his work seemed "disoriented", especially those whose refugee application has been rejected and who were in the appeal stage.

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

Ali acknowledges that these individuals seemed hopeless.

"When [they] declare you're forbidden to work - but also [you]