The Reasons We Chose to Go Undercover to Expose Crime in the Kurdish-origin Community

Two Kurdish-background individuals consented to work covertly to reveal a network behind illegal commercial businesses because the wrongdoers are damaging the image of Kurdish people in the UK, they state.

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

Investigators discovered that a Kurdish-linked crime network was operating convenience stores, hair salons and vehicle cleaning services the length of Britain, and sought to find out more about how it operated and who was involved.

Equipped with secret recording devices, Saman and Ali posed as Kurdish refugee applicants with no permission to work, seeking to acquire and run a small shop from which to distribute contraband cigarettes and electronic cigarettes.

They were able to reveal how straightforward it is for a person in these situations to establish and manage a commercial operation on the High Street in full view. The individuals involved, we learned, pay Kurdish individuals who have UK residency to register the operations in their names, helping to mislead the officials.

Saman and Ali also were able to covertly document one of those at the heart of the network, who asserted that he could remove government penalties of up to £60k encountered those using illegal workers.

"Personally wanted to participate in uncovering these unlawful operations [...] to loudly proclaim that they don't speak for our community," says Saman, a former refugee applicant himself. Saman entered the United Kingdom without authorization, having escaped from the Kurdish region - a area that straddles the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not officially recognized as a state - because his life was at risk.

The journalists recognize that conflicts over illegal immigration are significant in the United Kingdom and explain they have both been worried that the probe could worsen tensions.

But Ali explains that the unauthorized working "harms the whole Kurdish-origin population" and he considers driven to "expose it [the criminal network] out into public view".

Separately, the journalist says he was concerned the publication could be exploited by the far-right.

He says this especially impressed him when he discovered that radical right activist Tommy Robinson's national unity march was occurring in the capital on one of the weekends he was working undercover. Banners and banners could be spotted at the protest, displaying "we want our country returned".

Both journalists have both been observing social media reaction to the exposé from inside the Kurdish population and say it has generated intense frustration for certain individuals. One social media message they spotted said: "How can we identify and find [the undercover reporters] to attack them like animals!"

Another demanded their relatives in Kurdistan to be slaughtered.

They have also read claims that they were informants for the UK authorities, and betrayers to other Kurdish people. "We are not spies, and we have no aim of hurting the Kurdish-origin population," one reporter states. "Our aim is to reveal those who have damaged its standing. Both journalists are proud of our Kurdish-origin heritage and extremely troubled about the behavior of such people."

The majority of those applying for asylum say they are escaping politically motivated discrimination, according to Ibrahim Avicil from the a charitable organization, a charity that supports asylum seekers and refugee applicants in the United Kingdom.

This was the situation for our covert reporter one investigator, who, when he first came to the UK, experienced challenges for many years. He states he had to live on less than £20 a per week while his asylum claim was processed.

Asylum seekers now receive about £49 a week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in housing which provides meals, according to Home Office policies.

"Realistically stating, this isn't adequate to support a dignified lifestyle," explains the expert from the the organization.

Because refugee applicants are largely restricted from working, he feels many are susceptible to being exploited and are essentially "forced to labor in the illegal economy for as low as three pounds per hourly rate".

A spokesperson for the authorities commented: "We are unapologetic for refusing to grant refugee applicants the permission to work - granting this would establish an reason for individuals to come to the United Kingdom illegally."

Asylum applications can require years to be processed with almost a third requiring over 12 months, according to official statistics from the end of March this current year.

Saman says working illegally in a vehicle cleaning service, hair salon or convenience store would have been extremely simple to accomplish, but he explained to the team he would not have done that.

However, he states that those he interviewed working in illegal convenience stores during his investigation seemed "confused", notably those whose refugee application has been denied and who were in the legal challenge.

"These individuals spent their entire savings to travel to the United Kingdom, they had their refugee application rejected and now they've sacrificed all they had."

The other reporter acknowledges that these people seemed desperate.

"When [they] say you're prohibited to work - but additionally [you]