Why Our Team Chose to Go Covert to Expose Crime in the Kurdish-origin Community

A pair of Kurdish-background men agreed to work covertly to uncover a organization behind illegal main street enterprises because the criminals are damaging the reputation of Kurdish people in the United Kingdom, they state.

The pair, who we are referring to as Saman and Ali, are Kurdish journalists who have both resided legally in the UK for a long time.

The team discovered that a Kurdish-linked crime network was managing convenience stores, barbershops and vehicle cleaning services the length of the United Kingdom, and wanted to discover more about how it functioned and who was participating.

Armed with secret recording devices, Ali and Saman posed as Kurdish-origin refugee applicants with no right to work, seeking to acquire and manage a small shop from which to sell unlawful tobacco products and vapes.

The investigators were able to reveal how simple it is for a person in these conditions to establish and operate a enterprise on the High Street in full view. The individuals participating, we discovered, pay Kurds who have British citizenship to legally establish the businesses in their names, enabling to mislead the authorities.

Ali and Saman also managed to covertly record one of those at the core of the organization, who stated that he could erase government fines of up to sixty thousand pounds faced those hiring illegal laborers.

"I aimed to contribute in revealing these illegal activities [...] to declare that they don't represent our community," says one reporter, a ex- refugee applicant personally. The reporter entered the United Kingdom without authorization, having fled the Kurdish region - a region that covers the boundaries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not globally acknowledged as a nation - because his life was at risk.

The journalists recognize that tensions over unauthorized immigration are significant in the United Kingdom and state they have both been anxious that the inquiry could inflame conflicts.

But the other reporter states that the unauthorized working "harms the entire Kurdish community" and he believes obligated to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into public view".

Separately, Ali says he was worried the publication could be exploited by the extreme right.

He says this notably struck him when he noticed that radical right campaigner a prominent activist's Unite the Kingdom march was taking place in the capital on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was working undercover. Signs and banners could be observed at the rally, showing "we demand our nation returned".

Both journalists have both been observing social media feedback to the inquiry from inside the Kurdish-origin community and report it has generated significant frustration for some. One social media message they observed said: "In what way can we locate and find [the undercover reporters] to harm them like dogs!"

Another called for their families in Kurdistan to be harmed.

They have also read allegations that they were spies for the UK government, and betrayers to other Kurds. "Both of us are not spies, and we have no intention of damaging the Kurdish community," one reporter says. "Our aim is to uncover those who have compromised its image. We are proud of our Kurdish-origin heritage and deeply troubled about the activities of such people."

Most of those applying for refugee status claim they are escaping political persecution, according to an expert from the a charitable organization, a charity that helps asylum seekers and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the situation for our covert journalist one investigator, who, when he first arrived to the United Kingdom, experienced challenges for years. He states he had to live on less than twenty pounds a 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 shelter which offers meals, according to Home Office guidance.

"Honestly speaking, this is not adequate to sustain a respectable lifestyle," explains the expert from the the organization.

Because refugee applicants are mostly prevented from employment, he thinks many are open to being taken advantage of and are effectively "forced to work in the black market for as little as £3 per hourly rate".

A spokesperson for the Home Office said: "The government are unapologetic for not granting refugee applicants the permission to work - doing so would establish an motivation for individuals to migrate to the United Kingdom without authorization."

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

Saman says working without authorization in a vehicle cleaning service, hair salon or convenience store would have been quite easy to do, but he informed us he would not have participated in that.

However, he states that those he encountered laboring in unauthorized convenience stores during his research seemed "lost", particularly those whose asylum claim has been denied and who were in the appeal stage.

"They spent all of their money to migrate to the UK, they had their refugee application refused and now they've forfeited their entire investment."

The other reporter agrees that these individuals seemed in dire straits.

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