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

Two Kurdish-background individuals decided to go undercover to reveal a network behind illegal main street businesses because the lawbreakers are negatively affecting the image of Kurdish people in the UK, they state.

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

The team discovered that a Kurdish illegal enterprise was running convenience stores, hair salons and vehicle cleaning services the length of the United Kingdom, and aimed to discover more about how it functioned and who was participating.

Equipped with hidden cameras, Saman and Ali presented themselves as Kurdish-origin asylum seekers with no permission to work, attempting to acquire and operate a small shop from which to trade contraband tobacco products and vapes.

They were successful to uncover how simple it is for an individual in these circumstances to start and operate a business on the main street in plain sight. The individuals participating, we learned, compensate Kurds who have UK citizenship to register the operations in their identities, assisting to mislead the authorities.

Ali and Saman also succeeded to covertly document one of those at the core of the organization, who claimed that he could remove official fines of up to sixty thousand pounds encountered those using illegal laborers.

"I sought to participate in exposing these illegal operations [...] to declare that they don't represent our community," says Saman, a ex- refugee applicant himself. Saman came to the country illegally, having escaped from the Kurdish region - a territory that covers the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not internationally recognised as a country - because his safety was at threat.

The investigators acknowledge that disagreements over unauthorized immigration are high in the United Kingdom and say they have both been worried that the probe could worsen conflicts.

But Ali explains that the unauthorized working "harms the entire Kurdish-origin population" and he considers driven to "bring it [the criminal network] out into the open".

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

He explains this notably impressed him when he noticed that far-right activist a prominent activist's Unite the Kingdom protest was taking place in the capital on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was operating covertly. Banners and banners could be seen at the rally, reading "we demand our country back".

Saman and Ali have both been tracking online feedback to the investigation from inside the Kurdish population and report it has caused significant outrage for some. One Facebook post they found stated: "In what way can we locate and find [the undercover reporters] to harm them like dogs!"

One more urged their families in Kurdistan to be slaughtered.

They have also encountered allegations that they were agents for the UK government, and betrayers to other Kurdish people. "We are not spies, and we have no aim of hurting the Kurdish population," Saman explains. "Our objective is to uncover those who have damaged its standing. We are proud of our Kurdish-origin heritage and profoundly concerned about the actions of such individuals."

Most of those seeking asylum state they are fleeing political discrimination, according to Ibrahim Avicil from the a refugee support organization, a non-profit that assists refugees and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom.

This was the scenario for our covert journalist one investigator, who, when he first came to the United Kingdom, struggled for many years. He says he had to survive on less than twenty pounds a week while his refugee application was considered.

Asylum seekers now get approximately £49 a per week - or £9.95 if they are in shelter which offers food, according to Home Office policies.

"Honestly stating, this isn't adequate to maintain a acceptable lifestyle," states the expert from the the organization.

Because refugee applicants are largely prevented from employment, he thinks many are susceptible to being taken advantage of and are essentially "obligated to labor in the black market for as little as £3 per hourly rate".

A spokesperson for the government department said: "The government make no apology for not granting asylum seekers the right to be employed - granting this would establish an motivation for people to come to the UK illegally."

Asylum applications can require multiple years to be resolved with approximately a 33% requiring over a year, according to official statistics from the end of March this year.

Saman explains being employed without authorization in a car wash, hair salon or mini-mart would have been extremely simple to do, but he informed the team he would never have engaged in that.

However, he says that those he met working in illegal convenience stores during his work seemed "disoriented", notably those whose asylum claim has been refused and who were in the appeals process.

"These individuals expended all of their funds to travel to the UK, they had their asylum denied and now they've sacrificed everything."

Ali acknowledges that these people seemed desperate.

"If [they] declare you're forbidden to be employed - but also [you]