The Reasons We Went Covert to Expose Crime in the Kurdish Community

Two Kurdish men agreed to operate secretly to uncover a network behind unlawful High Street establishments because the lawbreakers are damaging the reputation of Kurds in the UK, they explain.

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

Investigators uncovered that a Kurdish illegal enterprise was operating mini-marts, barbershops and vehicle cleaning services throughout the UK, and wanted to discover more about how it operated and who was involved.

Armed with hidden recording devices, Ali and Saman posed as Kurdish refugee applicants with no permission to be employed, attempting to acquire and manage a convenience store from which to distribute unlawful cigarettes and vapes.

They were successful to uncover how easy it is for someone in these conditions to establish and manage a enterprise on the main street in plain sight. The individuals involved, we discovered, pay Kurdish individuals who have UK residency to legally establish the operations in their names, helping to mislead the government agencies.

Saman and Ali also were able to discreetly document one of those at the core of the network, who claimed that he could remove government sanctions of up to £60,000 faced those using unauthorized employees.

"I aimed to participate in revealing these illegal operations [...] to say that they don't characterize Kurdish people," says Saman, a ex- refugee applicant personally. The reporter came to the country illegally, having escaped from Kurdistan - a area that covers the boundaries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not internationally recognised as a state - because his life was at danger.

The journalists recognize that disagreements over unauthorized migration are high in the United Kingdom and state they have both been anxious that the investigation could inflame hostilities.

But the other reporter states that the illegal labor "harms the whole Kurdish-origin population" and he feels obligated to "expose it [the criminal network] out into the open".

Separately, Ali mentions he was concerned the publication could be seized upon by the extreme right.

He explains this especially affected him when he noticed that extreme right campaigner Tommy Robinson's national unity rally was taking place in London on one of the weekends he was operating covertly. Placards and banners could be seen at the gathering, reading "we demand our nation returned".

Saman and Ali have both been monitoring online reaction to the investigation from within the Kurdish-origin community and explain it has caused strong anger for certain individuals. One Facebook message they found read: "In what way can we locate and find [the undercover reporters] to attack them like dogs!"

Another called for their relatives in Kurdistan to be slaughtered.

They have also seen accusations that they were informants for the UK authorities, and traitors to fellow Kurdish people. "We are not informants, and we have no desire of hurting the Kurdish community," one reporter says. "Our goal is to reveal those who have damaged its reputation. We are proud of our Kurdish heritage and profoundly concerned about the behavior of such individuals."

The majority of those applying for asylum claim they are fleeing politically motivated persecution, according to an expert from the a charitable organization, a non-profit that helps refugees and refugee applicants in the United Kingdom.

This was the scenario for our covert reporter Saman, who, when he initially arrived to the UK, struggled for years. He explains he had to live on under £20 a per week while his asylum claim was processed.

Asylum seekers now receive approximately forty-nine pounds a week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in shelter which provides food, according to Home Office policies.

"Honestly speaking, this isn't enough to maintain a dignified existence," explains Mr Avicil from the RWCA.

Because refugee applicants are generally prohibited from employment, he thinks many are susceptible to being manipulated and are practically "compelled to labor in the black market for as little as three pounds per hourly rate".

A spokesperson for the government department commented: "We make no apology for not granting refugee applicants the authorization to be employed - granting this would create an motivation for people to come to the UK without authorization."

Refugee cases can require years to be resolved with approximately a third taking more than a year, according to government figures from the spring this current year.

Saman says working without authorization in a car wash, hair salon or convenience store would have been quite straightforward to do, but he told the team he would not have engaged in that.

Nonetheless, he says that those he met working in illegal convenience stores during his investigation seemed "disoriented", particularly those whose asylum claim has been rejected and who were in the appeals process.

"These individuals expended all of their savings to migrate to the United Kingdom, they had their refugee application rejected and now they've sacrificed all they had."

The other reporter concurs that these people seemed hopeless.

"If [they] declare you're prohibited to work - but also [you]