The Reasons Our Team Went Covert to Reveal Criminal Activity in the Kurdish-origin Community

Two Kurdish individuals decided to work covertly to expose a operation behind unlawful commercial businesses because the lawbreakers are damaging the standing of Kurds in the UK, they state.

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

Investigators found that a Kurdish criminal operation was running small shops, hair salons and vehicle cleaning services the length of Britain, and wanted to learn more about how it operated and who was taking part.

Equipped with hidden cameras, Ali and Saman presented themselves as Kurdish-origin asylum seekers with no permission to be employed, seeking to acquire and run a small shop from which to sell illegal tobacco products and vapes.

The investigators were able to reveal how simple it is for someone in these conditions to start and operate a enterprise on the main street in full view. The individuals participating, we learned, compensate Kurdish individuals who have British citizenship to register the operations in their names, assisting to fool the officials.

Ali and Saman also managed to discreetly film one of those at the centre of the network, who asserted that he could remove official sanctions of up to £60k imposed on those using unauthorized employees.

"I aimed to play a role in uncovering these illegal practices [...] to declare that they don't characterize us," states one reporter, a former refugee applicant himself. The reporter came to the United Kingdom without authorization, having fled the Kurdish region - a territory that straddles the borders of multiple Middle Eastern countries but which is not globally acknowledged as a nation - because his safety was at threat.

The reporters admit that tensions over unauthorized migration are high in the UK and explain they have both been concerned that the inquiry could intensify conflicts.

But Ali says that the illegal employment "harms the entire Kurdish-origin community" and he considers driven to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into the open".

Furthermore, Ali mentions he was worried the publication could be used by the far-right.

He says this particularly struck him when he noticed that far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom march was taking place in London on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was working undercover. Signs and flags could be observed at the gathering, showing "we want our nation returned".

Saman and Ali have both been monitoring social media response to the investigation from within the Kurdish community and report it has generated intense outrage for certain individuals. One Facebook comment they spotted said: "How can we locate and locate [the undercover reporters] to attack them like animals!"

A different demanded their families in the Kurdish region to be slaughtered.

They have also encountered claims that they were spies for the British authorities, and betrayers to other Kurdish people. "We are not informants, and we have no aim of hurting the Kurdish community," one reporter explains. "Our aim is to uncover those who have harmed its reputation. We are honored of our Kurdish-origin identity and extremely worried about the actions of such persons."

Most of those applying for refugee status say they are escaping political discrimination, according to Ibrahim Avicil from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, a charity that supports refugees and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the situation for our undercover journalist one investigator, who, when he initially arrived to the UK, struggled for years. He says he had to survive on less than twenty pounds a week while his refugee application was processed.

Asylum seekers now are provided about forty-nine pounds a per week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in shelter which provides meals, according to government regulations.

"Honestly stating, this isn't adequate to maintain a respectable life," explains the expert from the the organization.

Because refugee applicants are largely prohibited from working, he believes a significant number are vulnerable to being taken advantage of and are practically "forced to work in the illegal economy for as low as three pounds per hour".

A representative for the authorities said: "The government make no apology for refusing to grant refugee applicants the permission to be employed - doing so would create an incentive for individuals to migrate to the UK without authorization."

Refugee applications can require years to be resolved with almost a third taking more than 12 months, according to government data from the spring this year.

The reporter says being employed without authorization in a vehicle cleaning service, barbershop or mini-mart would have been quite straightforward to do, but he informed us he would not have done that.

Nonetheless, he says that those he encountered working in unauthorized mini-marts during his research seemed "confused", particularly those whose refugee application has been denied and who were in the appeals process.

"These individuals expended their entire funds to migrate to the United Kingdom, they had their asylum denied and now they've forfeited all they had."

Ali concurs that these people seemed desperate.

"When [they] state you're not allowed to work - but also [you]