PULSE POINTS
❓WHAT HAPPENED: A Kurdish crime network has been found enabling migrants to work illegally in mini-marts across the United Kingdom.
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👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Kurdish crime network, BBC undercover reporters, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, and “ghost directors” like Hadi Ahmad Ali and Ismael Ahmedi Farzanda.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The investigation spans various locations from Dundee, Scotland, to south Devon, England, as reported on November 5, 2025.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Illegal immigrants are running phoney mini-marts selling smuggled cigarettes and even vapes to children. Our high streets are being used for organised crime, and the government is looking the other way.” – Zia Yusuf, Reform Party
🎯IMPACT: Britain’s Home Office has pledged to investigate the findings and address illegal working and organized crime linked to immigration.
An investigation has uncovered a Kurdish organized criminal network that allows asylum seekers to illegally operate mini-marts on Britain’s high streets, generating profits from black market cigarettes and vapes, some of them sold to children, while evading law enforcement. At the core of the operation are so-called “ghost directors”—individuals paid to act as nominal owners, registering dozens of businesses without any actual involvement in their day-to-day running.
Two undercover journalists, posing as asylum seekers interested in taking over shops, were shown just how straightforward it is to acquire and manage one of these outlets and make substantial earnings from contraband sales. The investigation has tied more than 100 mini-marts, barbershops, and car washes to the scheme, spanning from Dundee in Scotland to Devon in south-west England. Financial crime expert Graham Barrow told the BBC that he believes the scam likely involves hundreds of additional sites.
The report has laid bare a system that enables asylum seekers to work without permits in plain sight amid everyday shoppers, with many stores relying heavily on illegal tobacco and vaping products for revenue. One shop owner told the undercover reporters that his weekly takings from illicit cigarettes could reach “sometimes, up to £3,000.” The ghost directors typically command fees of £250 to £300 a month simply for lending their names to the paperwork.
To avoid detection, these companies are frequently wound up after about a year and then restarted with minor adjustments to their details. Over the course of four months, investigators found a range of illicit practices: asylum seekers offering to sell entire shops for £18,000 in cash; active Kurdish Facebook groups advertising dozens of businesses for sale; and builders promoting sophisticated £6,000 concealment devices, such as button-activated loft dispensers for hiding stock, which they touted as “fine craftsmanship” capable of fooling sniffer dogs. Many asylum seekers end up working punishing 14-hour shifts for as less than the minimum wage.
One key example came from Crewe’s Top Store, where the owner, known as Surchi—a Kurdish asylum seeker from Iraq’s Kurdistan region whose claim was rejected after he arrived in 2022—offered to sell his business to an undercover reporter for £18,000. “You don’t need anything” to run it, he insisted, despite rules that prohibit asylum seekers from such employment. Surchi revealed he paid a contact called “Hadi” £250 each month to front the business: “That’s his job and he probably has 40 to 50 shops under his name. There’s no problem, he doesn’t mind what you sell.” This arrangement helped him avoid immigration scrutiny and tax payments. He also had a device on the premises allowing him to steal electricity.
He admitted to selling vapes to children, saying, “I have customers that are 12 years old, I don’t have any problem with them.” Company records highlight Hadi Ahmad Ali, an Iraqi man in his forties based in Birmingham, England, as a key figure, listed as director for more than 50 such businesses. He is closely linked to Ismaeel Farzanda, who oversees around 25 shops and took over the directorship of seven from Ali.
Farzanda described his role bluntly to the undercover reporter: “I just put the shops under my name for people.” He added a warning about potential busts: “If you know you’re caught, tell us so that for the interviews we can change the name and not get in trouble.”
“Absolutely scandalous,” commented Zia Yusuf, for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. “Illegal immigrants are running phoney mini-marts selling smuggled cigarettes and even vapes to children. Our high streets are being used for organised crime, and the government is looking the other way.”
“It’s time these sham businesses were shut down and these criminals deported,” he added.
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