Why Our Team Went Undercover to Reveal Crime in the Kurdish Population

Two Kurdish individuals consented to go undercover to expose a operation behind unlawful commercial businesses because the wrongdoers are damaging the image of Kurdish people in the UK, they explain.

The two, who we are calling Ali and Saman, are Kurdish investigators who have both resided lawfully in the UK for many years.

Investigators uncovered that a Kurdish-linked illegal enterprise was managing small shops, hair salons and car washes throughout the UK, and aimed to find out more about how it functioned and who was taking part.

Prepared with covert recording devices, Saman and Ali posed as Kurdish asylum seekers with no right to be employed, looking to acquire and run a small shop from which to distribute illegal tobacco products and vapes.

They were able to reveal how easy it is for someone in these circumstances to establish and operate a enterprise on the commercial area in plain sight. The individuals involved, we found, pay Kurds who have British citizenship to legally establish the businesses in their identities, enabling to fool the officials.

Ali and Saman also managed to secretly film one of those at the centre of the network, who asserted that he could remove government penalties of up to £60,000 encountered those using unauthorized employees.

"Personally sought to participate in uncovering these unlawful operations [...] to declare that they do not represent Kurdish people," says one reporter, a ex- asylum seeker himself. Saman came to the United Kingdom illegally, having fled Kurdistan - a region that covers the boundaries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not internationally recognised as a country - because his well-being was at threat.

The journalists acknowledge that disagreements over unauthorized migration are elevated in the UK and say they have both been worried that the probe could worsen conflicts.

But the other reporter states that the illegal labor "harms the entire Kurdish-origin community" and he believes compelled to "expose it [the criminal network] out into the open".

Additionally, the journalist mentions he was concerned the publication could be used by the extreme right.

He explains this particularly affected him when he discovered that far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson's national unity protest was happening in London on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was working secretly. Placards and flags could be observed at the gathering, displaying "we want our country back".

Both journalists have both been monitoring social media response to the inquiry from inside the Kurdish-origin population and explain it has caused strong anger for certain individuals. One social media post they observed said: "How can we find and locate [the undercover reporters] to harm them like animals!"

Another called for their relatives in the Kurdish region to be attacked.

They have also read accusations that they were spies for the UK government, and traitors to other Kurds. "Both of us are not informants, and we have no intention of damaging the Kurdish-origin community," Saman explains. "Our aim is to reveal those who have damaged its standing. We are proud of our Kurdish-origin identity and profoundly concerned about the actions of such individuals."

The majority of those seeking asylum claim they are fleeing politically motivated oppression, according to Ibrahim Avicil from the a refugee support organization, a charity that assists asylum seekers and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom.

This was the scenario for our undercover journalist one investigator, who, when he first came to the United Kingdom, experienced challenges for years. He explains he had to survive on under twenty pounds a week while his asylum claim was reviewed.

Refugee applicants now are provided approximately forty-nine pounds a week - or £9.95 if they are in accommodation which offers food, according to government regulations.

"Honestly stating, this is not enough to support a respectable lifestyle," says Mr Avicil from the RWCA.

Because asylum seekers are largely prevented from working, he feels numerous are open to being taken advantage of and are essentially "compelled to work in the black market for as low as £3 per hourly rate".

A official for the authorities commented: "We make no apology for not granting asylum seekers the authorization to be employed - granting this would generate an reason for people to come to the UK without authorization."

Asylum applications can require a long time to be processed with nearly a third taking more than a year, according to official statistics from the spring this year.

The reporter says working illegally in a car wash, hair salon or mini-mart would have been very easy to achieve, but he explained to us he would never have participated in that.

However, he states that those he met working in unauthorized convenience stores during his research seemed "disoriented", especially those whose refugee application has been rejected and who were in the appeal stage.

"These individuals spent their entire money to travel to the United Kingdom, they had their refugee application denied and now they've lost all they had."

Ali agrees that these individuals seemed hopeless.

"If [they] say you're forbidden to work - but also [you]