Why Our Team Went Undercover to Reveal Criminal Activity in the Kurdish-origin Community

Two Kurdish individuals decided to work covertly to expose a operation behind unlawful High Street establishments because the criminals are damaging the reputation of Kurdish people in the Britain, they explain.

The two, who we are referring to as Ali and Saman, are Kurdish investigators who have both resided legally in the UK for many years.

Investigators found that a Kurdish illegal enterprise was running convenience stores, hair salons and car washes throughout Britain, and wanted to find out more about how it functioned and who was participating.

Prepared with covert recording devices, Ali and Saman presented themselves as Kurdish-origin asylum seekers with no right to work, seeking to acquire and manage a convenience store from which to trade unlawful cigarettes and vapes.

The investigators were able to discover how easy it is for someone in these situations to establish and run a enterprise on the High Street in full view. Those participating, we found, pay Kurdish individuals who have British citizenship to legally establish the businesses in their identities, assisting to deceive the authorities.

Ali and Saman also succeeded to secretly film one of those at the heart of the operation, who claimed that he could erase government penalties of up to sixty thousand pounds encountered those using unauthorized workers.

"Personally sought to play a role in exposing these unlawful practices [...] to say that they do not speak for our community," states Saman, a former refugee applicant personally. The reporter came to the United Kingdom illegally, having escaped from the Kurdish region - a region that spans the boundaries of multiple Middle Eastern countries but which is not globally acknowledged as a state - because his safety was at risk.

The investigators acknowledge that disagreements over unauthorized immigration are high in the United Kingdom and explain they have both been anxious that the probe could inflame tensions.

But the other reporter states that the unauthorized working "harms the entire Kurdish-origin population" and he feels compelled to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into broad daylight".

Additionally, Ali explains he was anxious the publication could be used by the far-right.

He says this particularly impressed him when he noticed that far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson's national unity protest was occurring in London on one of the weekends he was operating covertly. Banners and banners could be observed at the rally, showing "we want our nation returned".

Both journalists have both been observing social media feedback to the exposé from within the Kurdish-origin population and explain it has generated significant frustration for certain individuals. One social media message they observed read: "In what way can we find and locate [the undercover reporters] to kill them like animals!"

Another urged their relatives in the Kurdish region to be attacked.

They have also seen accusations that they were agents for the British authorities, and betrayers to fellow Kurdish people. "We are not spies, and we have no aim of damaging the Kurdish-origin population," Saman explains. "Our aim is to uncover those who have harmed its image. We are proud of our Kurdish identity and extremely worried about the behavior of such people."

The majority of those applying for asylum say they are escaping politically motivated persecution, according to Ibrahim Avicil from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, a organization that supports asylum seekers and asylum seekers in the UK.

This was the case for our covert reporter Saman, who, when he initially came to the United Kingdom, struggled for years. He explains he had to live on under twenty pounds a week while his refugee application was considered.

Asylum seekers now receive approximately forty-nine pounds a week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in accommodation which offers food, according to official regulations.

"Realistically speaking, this is not adequate to support a respectable life," states the expert from the RWCA.

Because asylum seekers are mostly restricted from working, he thinks many are susceptible to being exploited and are effectively "compelled to labor in the unofficial sector for as low as three pounds per hourly rate".

A representative for the authorities stated: "We make no apology for not granting asylum seekers the authorization to be employed - doing so would create an motivation for people to migrate to the UK illegally."

Refugee applications can require multiple years to be decided with almost a one-third requiring over one year, according to government data from the spring this current year.

The reporter says working illegally in a vehicle cleaning service, hair salon or convenience store would have been extremely straightforward to do, but he told us he would never have participated in that.

Nevertheless, he says that those he interviewed employed in unauthorized convenience stores during his investigation seemed "confused", especially those whose refugee application has been rejected and who were in the appeal stage.

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

Ali concurs that these people seemed hopeless.

"If [they] declare you're forbidden to work - but additionally [you]