The Reasons Our Team Chose to Go Undercover to Expose Crime in the Kurdish-origin Population

A pair of Kurdish-background individuals agreed to operate secretly to reveal a network behind illegal main street establishments because the criminals are causing harm the standing of Kurdish people in the UK, they state.

The pair, who we are referring to as Ali and Saman, are Kurdish reporters who have both resided legally in the United Kingdom for a long time.

The team discovered that a Kurdish crime network was managing mini-marts, barbershops and car washes the length of the United Kingdom, and wanted to learn more about how it operated and who was participating.

Armed with covert cameras, Saman and Ali posed as Kurdish-origin refugee applicants with no authorization to work, attempting to purchase and run a small shop from which to distribute unlawful tobacco products and electronic cigarettes.

They were successful to uncover how straightforward it is for someone in these conditions to establish and manage a commercial operation on the main street in public view. The individuals participating, we learned, pay Kurds who have UK residency to legally establish the operations in their names, enabling to mislead the government agencies.

Ali and Saman also were able to secretly record one of those at the centre of the network, who asserted that he could erase government penalties of up to sixty thousand pounds imposed on those hiring unauthorized employees.

"Personally aimed to play a role in uncovering these illegal operations [...] to declare that they don't represent Kurdish people," states one reporter, a former asylum seeker personally. Saman came to the UK without authorization, having fled the Kurdish region - a territory that covers the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not officially recognized as a state - because his life was at threat.

The investigators acknowledge that tensions over unauthorized immigration are high in the United Kingdom and state they have both been concerned that the investigation could inflame tensions.

But the other reporter explains that the illegal employment "negatively affects the entire Kurdish community" and he feels obligated to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into public view".

Furthermore, Ali explains he was concerned the coverage could be used by the extreme right.

He states this particularly affected him when he noticed that extreme right activist a prominent activist's Unite the Kingdom rally was occurring in the capital on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was operating undercover. Signs and flags could be observed at the rally, reading "we want our country back".

Both journalists have both been monitoring social media reaction to the exposé from within the Kurdish-origin community and say it has generated significant outrage for certain individuals. One social media message they found said: "In what way can we find and locate [the undercover reporters] to harm them like dogs!"

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

They have also seen claims that they were agents for the UK government, and traitors to fellow Kurds. "Both of us are not informants, and we have no desire of damaging the Kurdish-origin population," one reporter explains. "Our aim is to expose those who have damaged its image. Both journalists are proud of our Kurdish heritage and extremely troubled about the actions of such persons."

The majority of those applying for asylum state they are escaping politically motivated oppression, according to an expert from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, a organization that supports asylum seekers and refugee applicants in the UK.

This was the scenario for our covert reporter Saman, who, when he first arrived to the UK, experienced challenges for many years. He states he had to survive on under twenty pounds a week while his asylum claim was processed.

Refugee applicants now receive approximately forty-nine pounds a week - or £9.95 if they are in housing which provides food, according to official regulations.

"Realistically stating, this isn't sufficient to sustain a respectable life," states Mr Avicil from the the organization.

Because asylum seekers are generally prevented from working, he feels a significant number are open to being exploited and are practically "forced to work in the unofficial economy for as low as three pounds per hourly rate".

A official for the Home Office stated: "We are unapologetic for not granting refugee applicants the permission to be employed - doing so would establish an incentive for individuals to migrate to the United Kingdom illegally."

Asylum cases can take a long time to be resolved with almost a 33% taking more than 12 months, according to government data from the late March this year.

Saman says working illegally in a car wash, hair salon or mini-mart would have been extremely easy to achieve, but he told the team he would never have participated in that.

However, he says that those he interviewed working in illegal mini-marts during his research seemed "lost", especially those whose asylum claim has been rejected and who were in the legal challenge.

"These individuals spent all their funds to come to the UK, they had their asylum rejected and now they've forfeited everything."

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

"If [they] state you're forbidden to work - but simultaneously [you]