Why We Went Covert to Expose Criminal Activity in the Kurdish Community

Two Kurdish men agreed to operate secretly to reveal a network behind illegal main street businesses because the wrongdoers are negatively affecting the image of Kurds in the Britain, they say.

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

The team discovered that a Kurdish-linked criminal operation was operating convenience stores, hair salons and car washes across the United Kingdom, and aimed to discover more about how it functioned and who was participating.

Armed with covert recording devices, Ali and Saman posed as Kurdish asylum seekers with no authorization to be employed, seeking to purchase and operate a small shop from which to trade illegal tobacco products and electronic cigarettes.

The investigators were successful to uncover how simple it is for an individual in these circumstances to set up and manage a enterprise on the commercial area in public view. The individuals involved, we discovered, compensate Kurdish individuals who have UK citizenship to register the operations in their identities, assisting to mislead the government agencies.

Ali and Saman also were able to covertly document one of those at the core of the organization, who claimed that he could remove official fines of up to £60k imposed on those hiring unauthorized workers.

"I wanted to contribute in exposing these illegal practices [...] to loudly proclaim that they don't speak for us," explains one reporter, a former refugee applicant himself. Saman came to the country without authorization, having escaped from the Kurdish region - a area that straddles the boundaries of multiple Middle Eastern countries but which is not internationally recognised as a state - because his well-being was at danger.

The investigators recognize that conflicts over illegal migration are significant in the UK and explain they have both been concerned that the investigation could worsen tensions.

But Ali says that the unauthorized working "damages the whole Kurdish-origin community" and he believes obligated to "reveal it [the criminal network] out into broad daylight".

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

He states this especially impressed him when he noticed that extreme right campaigner a prominent activist's national unity march was happening in the capital on one of the weekends he was working undercover. Placards and flags could be seen at the gathering, showing "we want our nation returned".

Saman and Ali have both been tracking online feedback to the inquiry from within the Kurdish population and explain it has caused strong frustration for certain individuals. One Facebook message they found said: "How can we locate and track [the undercover reporters] to harm them like animals!"

Another called for their relatives in Kurdistan to be attacked.

They have also encountered accusations that they were agents for the British government, and traitors to fellow Kurds. "We are not informants, and we have no intention of hurting the Kurdish population," Saman states. "Our aim is to reveal those who have compromised its image. We are proud of our Kurdish-origin identity and profoundly worried about the behavior of such individuals."

Most of those applying for refugee status say they are escaping political discrimination, according to Ibrahim Avicil from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, a non-profit that supports refugees and refugee applicants in the United Kingdom.

This was the situation for our undercover reporter Saman, who, when he initially came to the United Kingdom, struggled for years. He says he had to survive on less than £20 a week while his refugee application was reviewed.

Asylum seekers now get about £49 a per week - or £9.95 if they are in housing which offers food, according to official regulations.

"Practically saying, this is not adequate to sustain a respectable lifestyle," says Mr Avicil from the the organization.

Because refugee applicants are generally prohibited from working, he feels many are susceptible to being manipulated and are essentially "compelled to work in the illegal market for as little as £3 per hourly rate".

A representative for the Home Office stated: "The government make no apology for not granting asylum seekers the authorization to work - doing so would create an motivation for people to travel to the United Kingdom without authorization."

Refugee cases can take multiple years to be resolved with nearly a third requiring over 12 months, according to government statistics from the end of March this year.

Saman explains working without authorization in a car wash, hair salon or convenience store would have been extremely straightforward to achieve, but he informed the team he would never have engaged in that.

However, he says that those he met laboring in illegal convenience stores during his work seemed "confused", particularly those whose refugee application has been denied and who were in the appeals process.

"They expended their entire funds to migrate to the UK, they had their asylum denied and now they've sacrificed all they had."

Ali agrees that these people seemed desperate.

"If [they] say you're not allowed to work - but also [you]