The Reasons We Went Undercover to Uncover Criminal Activity in the Kurdish-origin Community

A pair of Kurdish-background men decided to go undercover to expose a organization behind unlawful commercial enterprises because the wrongdoers are damaging the image of Kurds in the United Kingdom, they explain.

The two, who we are calling Ali and Saman, are Kurdish-origin reporters who have both lived legally in the United Kingdom for a long time.

Investigators found that a Kurdish-linked illegal enterprise was managing small shops, barbershops and car washes across the United Kingdom, and sought to find out more about how it worked and who was participating.

Equipped with hidden cameras, Saman and Ali posed as Kurdish-origin refugee applicants with no permission to work, looking to buy and manage a convenience store from which to trade contraband tobacco products and vapes.

The investigators were able to discover how easy it is for someone in these conditions to start and run a business on the High Street in full view. Those involved, we discovered, compensate Kurdish individuals who have UK citizenship to register the operations in their identities, enabling to fool the officials.

Ali and Saman also were able to secretly film one of those at the heart of the network, who claimed that he could erase official sanctions of up to sixty thousand pounds imposed on those using unauthorized workers.

"I aimed to play a role in uncovering these unlawful operations [...] to say that they do not characterize us," explains one reporter, a former refugee applicant himself. The reporter came to the United Kingdom without authorization, having fled Kurdistan - a territory that straddles the boundaries of multiple Middle Eastern countries but which is not internationally recognised as a country - because his safety was at risk.

The investigators admit that tensions over illegal migration are high in the United Kingdom and state they have both been anxious that the investigation could worsen conflicts.

But Ali states that the illegal employment "damages the whole Kurdish-origin community" and he believes driven to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into the open".

Furthermore, Ali mentions he was anxious the reporting could be seized upon by the extreme right.

He states this especially impressed him when he discovered that extreme right campaigner Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom protest was happening in the capital on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was operating secretly. Banners and banners could be observed at the protest, reading "we want our country back".

The reporters have both been observing social media reaction to the exposé from inside the Kurdish community and say it has generated significant outrage for some. One social media message they spotted read: "How can we find and track [the undercover reporters] to attack them like animals!"

Another demanded their families in the Kurdish region to be harmed.

They have also seen claims that they were informants for the UK government, and traitors to fellow Kurdish people. "Both of us are not spies, and we have no desire of damaging the Kurdish-origin population," Saman states. "Our aim is to expose those who have compromised its image. We are proud of our Kurdish-origin heritage and profoundly troubled about the behavior of such individuals."

Most of those seeking asylum claim they are fleeing political oppression, according to an expert from the a refugee support organization, a non-profit that helps asylum seekers and asylum seekers in the UK.

This was the case for our undercover reporter Saman, who, when he first arrived to the UK, faced difficulties for many years. He states he had to survive on less than twenty pounds a per week while his refugee application was reviewed.

Refugee applicants now are provided approximately forty-nine pounds a week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in accommodation which offers food, according to Home Office guidance.

"Honestly stating, this is not adequate to support a dignified existence," says Mr Avicil from the RWCA.

Because asylum seekers are mostly prevented from employment, he believes a significant number are susceptible to being exploited and are practically "obligated to labor in the illegal market for as low as three pounds per hourly rate".

A spokesperson for the government department commented: "The government make no apology for not granting asylum seekers the right to work - granting this would establish an motivation for people to migrate to the United Kingdom without authorization."

Asylum cases can take a long time to be resolved with nearly a one-third taking more than a year, according to government figures from the end of March this current year.

The reporter states working illegally in a car wash, barbershop or mini-mart would have been quite simple to accomplish, but he explained to us he would not have done that.

Nonetheless, he states that those he interviewed working in unauthorized mini-marts during his research seemed "lost", notably those whose refugee application has been denied and who were in the legal challenge.

"They used their entire money to migrate to the United Kingdom, they had their refugee application rejected and now they've lost their entire investment."

The other reporter concurs that these people seemed in dire straits.

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