News Agency
Two Kurdish-background men consented to go undercover to reveal a organization behind unlawful main street businesses because the lawbreakers are damaging the reputation of Kurds in the United Kingdom, they say.
The two, who we are referring to as Ali and Saman, are Kurdish-origin investigators who have both resided legally in the UK for years.
Investigators discovered that a Kurdish-linked criminal operation was managing mini-marts, barbershops and vehicle cleaning services across the United Kingdom, and wanted to find out more about how it functioned and who was involved.
Prepared with secret cameras, Ali and Saman presented themselves as Kurdish-origin asylum seekers with no authorization to be employed, seeking to purchase and operate a small shop from which to trade contraband cigarettes and vapes.
They were able to discover how simple it is for an individual in these situations to start and manage a business on the main street in public view. The individuals involved, we learned, pay Kurdish individuals who have British citizenship to legally establish the businesses in their names, enabling to deceive the officials.
Ali and Saman also managed to covertly record one of those at the core of the network, who claimed that he could eliminate government penalties of up to sixty thousand pounds encountered those hiring illegal laborers.
"I wanted to participate in exposing these illegal activities [...] to loudly proclaim that they do not represent our community," explains one reporter, a ex- asylum seeker personally. The reporter entered the United Kingdom without authorization, having escaped from the Kurdish region - a region that covers the borders of multiple Middle Eastern countries but which is not globally acknowledged as a state - because his life was at risk.
The journalists recognize that conflicts over unauthorized migration are high in the United Kingdom and state they have both been worried that the investigation could intensify hostilities.
But Ali states that the illegal working "negatively affects the whole Kurdish-origin population" and he considers compelled to "bring it [the criminal network] out into the open".
Additionally, Ali mentions he was anxious the publication could be seized upon by the extreme right.
He says this especially affected him when he discovered that radical right activist Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom march was occurring in the capital on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was operating covertly. Banners and banners could be spotted at the gathering, showing "we demand our country returned".
Both journalists have both been observing social media feedback to the investigation from within the Kurdish-origin community and report it has sparked intense frustration for certain individuals. One social media comment they found stated: "How can we locate and find [the undercover reporters] to kill them like animals!"
Another urged their relatives in the Kurdish region to be slaughtered.
They have also read claims that they were agents for the UK government, and betrayers to other Kurdish people. "Both of us are not informants, and we have no desire of damaging the Kurdish-origin community," Saman says. "Our objective is to expose those who have damaged its standing. Both journalists are proud of our Kurdish heritage and profoundly concerned about the activities of such persons."
Most of those seeking refugee status say they are fleeing political persecution, according to an expert from the a charitable organization, a charity that helps refugees and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom.
This was the case for our covert journalist one investigator, who, when he first came to the UK, experienced challenges for many years. He explains he had to survive on less than twenty pounds a per week while his asylum claim was reviewed.
Asylum seekers now get about £49 a week - or £9.95 if they are in accommodation which includes food, according to Home Office guidance.
"Practically speaking, this is not sufficient to maintain a dignified life," says the expert from the RWCA.
Because refugee applicants are generally restricted from employment, he feels numerous are open to being taken advantage of and are effectively "forced to labor in the illegal sector for as little as £3 per hour".
A spokesperson for the government department stated: "We do not apologize for refusing to grant asylum seekers the right to work - doing so would generate an incentive for individuals to travel to the United Kingdom illegally."
Asylum applications can take years to be processed with almost a 33% taking over 12 months, according to official data from the late March this current year.
Saman says being employed without authorization in a car wash, barbershop or mini-mart would have been extremely straightforward to do, but he informed the team he would not have participated in that.
Nonetheless, he states that those he encountered laboring in unauthorized mini-marts during his research seemed "confused", especially those whose asylum claim has been refused and who were in the appeals process.
"They expended their entire money to migrate to the UK, they had their refugee application rejected and now they've sacrificed all they had."
The other reporter agrees that these individuals seemed hopeless.
"If [they] say you're not allowed to be employed - but additionally [you]
