The Reasons Our Team Went Undercover to Uncover Crime in the Kurdish Population

A pair of Kurdish men consented to go undercover to expose a organization behind illegal main street businesses because the lawbreakers are negatively affecting the image of Kurds in the United Kingdom, they explain.

The pair, who we are calling Ali and Saman, are Kurdish investigators who have both resided lawfully in the United Kingdom for a long time.

The team discovered that a Kurdish illegal enterprise was operating mini-marts, hair salons and vehicle cleaning services throughout the UK, and sought to find out more about how it functioned and who was involved.

Prepared with covert recording devices, Ali and Saman presented themselves as Kurdish-origin asylum seekers with no right to work, seeking to acquire and manage a mini-mart from which to trade unlawful tobacco products and electronic cigarettes.

The investigators were successful to discover how simple it is for a person in these situations to set up and manage a commercial operation on the main street in public view. Those participating, we found, compensate Kurdish individuals who have UK citizenship to legally establish the enterprises in their identities, helping to deceive the authorities.

Saman and Ali also were able to secretly document one of those at the heart of the operation, who asserted that he could remove government penalties of up to £60k faced those hiring unauthorized workers.

"I sought to contribute in revealing these unlawful operations [...] to say that they don't characterize our community," explains Saman, a ex- refugee applicant personally. Saman entered the country without authorization, having fled Kurdistan - a region that covers the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not globally acknowledged as a state - because his life was at threat.

The investigators acknowledge that disagreements over illegal migration are high in the UK and explain they have both been concerned that the inquiry could worsen conflicts.

But the other reporter says that the unauthorized employment "negatively affects the entire Kurdish-origin community" and he believes obligated to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into public view".

Additionally, the journalist explains he was anxious the publication could be exploited by the radical right.

He explains this especially struck him when he realized that extreme right campaigner a prominent activist's Unite the Kingdom rally was occurring in London on one of the weekends he was working covertly. Signs and banners could be spotted at the protest, displaying "we want our country returned".

Saman and Ali have both been monitoring social media response to the investigation from within the Kurdish-origin population and explain it has caused significant outrage for certain individuals. One social media message they observed read: "How can we locate and locate [the undercover reporters] to harm them like animals!"

Another called for their families in Kurdistan to be attacked.

They have also encountered claims that they were informants for the British authorities, and betrayers to other Kurdish people. "We are not informants, and we have no desire of damaging the Kurdish-origin community," Saman explains. "Our goal is to reveal those who have harmed its reputation. We are honored of our Kurdish heritage and deeply worried about the behavior of such individuals."

The majority of those applying for asylum say they are escaping politically motivated discrimination, according to an expert from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, a organization that assists refugees and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the situation for our covert journalist one investigator, who, when he initially arrived to the United Kingdom, faced difficulties for years. He explains he had to survive on less than twenty pounds a per week while his asylum claim was processed.

Asylum seekers now receive about £49 a week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in shelter which offers meals, according to official guidance.

"Realistically speaking, this isn't adequate to support a dignified existence," explains the expert from the the organization.

Because refugee applicants are largely prohibited from working, he thinks numerous are susceptible to being taken advantage of and are effectively "compelled to work in the unofficial economy for as little as £3 per hourly rate".

A representative for the Home Office commented: "The government do not apologize for not granting refugee applicants the authorization to be employed - granting this would create an incentive for people to travel to the UK illegally."

Refugee cases can take years to be resolved with nearly a third requiring more than 12 months, according to government statistics from the spring this year.

The reporter explains working without authorization in a vehicle cleaning service, hair salon or mini-mart would have been quite easy to do, but he informed us he would never have engaged in that.

Nonetheless, he states that those he encountered laboring in illegal mini-marts during his investigation seemed "lost", particularly those whose refugee application has been refused and who were in the appeal stage.

"These individuals used all their savings to migrate to the UK, they had their refugee application refused and now they've forfeited everything."

Ali concurs that these individuals seemed desperate.

"If [they] state you're prohibited to be employed - but also [you]