Why We Went Covert to Reveal Crime in the Kurdish Population

A pair of Kurdish-background men decided to go undercover to reveal a organization behind illegal High Street establishments because the lawbreakers are causing harm the reputation of Kurdish people in the Britain, they say.

The pair, who we are calling Saman and Ali, are Kurdish-origin investigators who have both resided legally in the UK for many years.

The team discovered that a Kurdish-linked criminal operation was managing mini-marts, barbershops and vehicle cleaning services throughout Britain, and aimed to discover more about how it operated and who was participating.

Prepared with hidden recording devices, Ali and Saman posed as Kurdish-origin asylum seekers with no right to work, seeking to purchase and manage a small shop from which to distribute illegal cigarettes and electronic cigarettes.

They were successful to uncover how straightforward it is for a person in these situations to establish and run a commercial operation on the main street in plain sight. The individuals involved, we found, pay Kurds who have UK residency to legally establish the operations in their names, assisting to fool the officials.

Saman and Ali also succeeded to covertly record one of those at the heart of the organization, who asserted that he could eliminate official sanctions of up to sixty thousand pounds faced those employing illegal workers.

"I aimed to contribute in exposing these unlawful practices [...] to declare that they do not represent us," states Saman, a ex- asylum seeker himself. Saman came to the UK without authorization, having escaped from the Kurdish region - a region that covers the boundaries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not officially recognized as a nation - because his life was at risk.

The investigators recognize that tensions over unauthorized migration are high in the UK and explain they have both been anxious that the inquiry could inflame tensions.

But the other reporter says that the illegal working "negatively affects the entire Kurdish-origin population" and he believes driven to "bring it [the criminal network] out into the open".

Separately, the journalist says he was concerned the coverage could be exploited by the extreme right.

He states this notably impressed him when he discovered that extreme right activist Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom protest was happening in the capital on one of the weekends he was operating undercover. Banners and banners could be spotted at the protest, reading "we demand our nation returned".

Saman and Ali have both been monitoring online reaction to the exposé from inside the Kurdish community and report it has caused intense anger for some. One Facebook comment they observed said: "How can we identify and locate [the undercover reporters] to harm them like dogs!"

A different urged their relatives in the Kurdish region to be harmed.

They have also read claims that they were spies for the British government, and betrayers to fellow Kurdish people. "Both of us are not informants, and we have no intention of harming the Kurdish population," Saman states. "Our aim is to uncover those who have compromised its standing. We are honored of our Kurdish-origin identity and deeply worried about the behavior of such individuals."

The majority of those seeking refugee status claim they are fleeing politically motivated discrimination, according to an expert from the a refugee support organization, a organization that supports asylum seekers and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the situation for our undercover reporter one investigator, who, when he first arrived to the UK, experienced challenges for many years. He says he had to live on under twenty pounds a per week while his asylum claim was reviewed.

Asylum seekers now are provided approximately £49 a week - or £9.95 if they are in housing which offers meals, according to government regulations.

"Realistically saying, this isn't sufficient to sustain a acceptable life," says Mr Avicil from the RWCA.

Because refugee applicants are largely prevented from employment, he feels numerous are open to being exploited and are essentially "compelled to labor in the black economy for as low as £3 per hour".

A official for the government department commented: "We do not apologize for refusing to grant asylum seekers the permission to work - granting this would generate an motivation for individuals to travel to the UK without authorization."

Refugee applications can take multiple years to be resolved with almost a one-third requiring over one year, according to official statistics from the late March this current year.

Saman says being employed illegally in a vehicle cleaning service, hair salon or convenience store would have been quite simple to accomplish, but he informed the team he would not have engaged in that.

However, he says that those he met laboring in unauthorized mini-marts during his investigation seemed "disoriented", especially those whose refugee application has been rejected and who were in the appeals process.

"These individuals used their entire money to travel to the United Kingdom, they had their asylum rejected and now they've sacrificed all they had."

The other reporter acknowledges that these individuals seemed hopeless.

"If [they] state you're not allowed to work - but additionally [you]