News Agency
A pair of Kurdish men agreed to go undercover to reveal a organization behind illegal main street establishments because the criminals are causing harm the image of Kurdish people in the UK, they say.
The two, who we are referring to as Saman and Ali, are Kurdish-origin investigators who have both lived lawfully in the United Kingdom for a long time.
The team found that a Kurdish-linked criminal operation was operating small shops, barbershops and car washes the length of Britain, and aimed to find out more about how it operated and who was involved.
Equipped with secret cameras, Ali and Saman posed as Kurdish asylum seekers with no permission to be employed, looking to buy and run a convenience store from which to distribute illegal tobacco products and vapes.
The investigators were successful to reveal how straightforward it is for someone in these situations to establish and run a commercial operation on the main street in plain sight. The individuals involved, we learned, pay Kurdish individuals who have British citizenship to register the businesses in their names, helping to mislead the authorities.
Saman and Ali also managed to discreetly record one of those at the centre of the organization, who claimed that he could remove official fines of up to sixty thousand pounds imposed on those employing unauthorized workers.
"Personally wanted to participate in revealing these illegal practices [...] to loudly proclaim that they do not represent us," says Saman, a former asylum seeker personally. The reporter entered the UK without authorization, having fled Kurdistan - a territory that straddles the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria but which is not globally acknowledged as a country - because his well-being was at risk.
The investigators acknowledge that disagreements over unauthorized migration are elevated in the UK and say they have both been anxious that the probe could inflame hostilities.
But the other reporter says that the unauthorized employment "harms the entire Kurdish community" and he considers driven to "bring it [the criminal network] out into broad daylight".
Separately, Ali says he was anxious the coverage could be seized upon by the radical right.
He states this particularly affected him when he noticed that far-right activist Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom rally was taking place in London on one of the Saturdays and Sundays he was working undercover. Banners and banners could be observed at the gathering, reading "we demand our nation returned".
The reporters have both been observing online feedback to the inquiry from inside the Kurdish population and say it has generated intense anger for some. One Facebook comment they spotted stated: "How can we locate and find [the undercover reporters] to attack them like dogs!"
A different urged their relatives in the Kurdish region to be harmed.
They have also read allegations that they were spies for the British government, and betrayers to fellow Kurds. "We are not informants, and we have no intention of hurting the Kurdish-origin community," Saman explains. "Our goal is to expose those who have damaged its reputation. Both journalists are proud of our Kurdish heritage and profoundly concerned about the activities of such individuals."
The majority of those applying for asylum say they are fleeing political oppression, according to an expert from the a refugee support organization, a non-profit that assists asylum seekers and refugee applicants in the UK.
This was the case for our covert reporter Saman, who, when he first came to the United Kingdom, experienced challenges for many years. He explains he had to live on less than twenty pounds a per week while his asylum claim was processed.
Refugee applicants now get approximately £49 a per week - or nine pounds ninety-five if they are in housing which includes meals, according to government policies.
"Honestly stating, this is not adequate to support a respectable existence," says the expert from the the organization.
Because asylum seekers are mostly prohibited from working, he thinks numerous are vulnerable to being manipulated and are practically "obligated to labor in the illegal sector for as little as £3 per hourly rate".
A representative for the authorities said: "We are unapologetic for refusing to grant asylum seekers the right to work - granting this would generate an motivation for individuals to come to the United Kingdom illegally."
Refugee cases can take multiple years to be decided with nearly a third requiring over a year, according to government statistics from the end of March this current year.
The reporter says working without authorization in a car wash, hair salon or mini-mart would have been quite straightforward to achieve, but he informed the team he would never have engaged in that.
Nonetheless, he explains that those he encountered laboring in unauthorized mini-marts during his work seemed "lost", particularly those whose asylum claim has been refused and who were in the legal challenge.
"They spent their entire money to come to the United Kingdom, they had their asylum rejected and now they've forfeited everything."
Ali concurs that these individuals seemed in dire straits.
"If [they] state you're not allowed to be employed - but also [you]
