‘Is my secret camera working?’

The findings of a one-year-long undercover investigation in a violent migrant smuggling gang were published by BBC News on 5 August-and, as a result, a person is now arrested in Birmingham.

Here, one of our correspondents, who took a false identity and presented as a migrant, explains how he met one of the senior members of the gang in a secret forest hideout.

Thinking about the battery in my pocket, I am walking towards the forest near Dunkark. I have hidden wires under two T-shirts, but is it still showing anything? Is my secret camera working? Is it pointing to the right angle? I have, most, a three -hour battery life left, and I need to go to Smugger’s secret camp, meet him and get out safely.

This is probably the most dangerous and most important moment to me, the culmination of several months working on this investigation with the team.

My back is a small team of high -risk advisors. With gang members who enter the forest to all, I worry that my advisors can expose me instead of protecting me. But they play it completely and have a low profile.

I am using a false name. My clothes are similar to people worn by other people who are trying to ride on a small boat for England. Scramble, old shoes. A big, warm, dirty, jacket. A backpack that I have spent watching, as if I have traveled long, hard miles to reach here.

I am taking my cover story into my head. I may need to go away quickly on the excuse. Possible landscape. We have planned and planned, but I know that anything is never required in this field.

I am an Arabic -speaking man and have become undercover at first – but is different each time, and carries different risks.

Over the years, I have spent a long time in northern France, trying to understand and highlight the complex and shady operations of smugglers. It was not an easy decision to infiltrate a violent criminal network.

I am entering the world governed with money, power and silence. But I am not just curious – I also believe that gangs are not as untouchables as they seem and I can play a role in highlighting them and perhaps help them stop them.

Inside the forest, my panic fades. I am now “Abu Ahmed” – my false identity. I do not even think that I am acting a part.

I am new in the city, a Syrian refugee whose refuge was rejected by Germany. I got scared, desperate, slightly lost and at the beginning of an uncertain journey.

I run a way down for smugglers camp that I was trying to remember the way I came in.

When the smuggler, Abdullah, meets me, he is friendly but he says that he needs to leave immediately. I try to look tired. I should persuade him to wait, to talk to me quickly, while my battery is still working. Then, I can leave from there.

Abdullah has nothing and feels completely low. But I know that smugglers have guns and knives and only have only one way that goes inside and outside the camp.

A day later, away from the forest, I see online that there is another fatal shoot.

One of the most difficult things during my time, in the weeks before meeting Abdullah, is monitoring the phone number. The gang members often change them, and sometimes you can lose months of work in a second. Many times I have lost hope, seeing everything separately. But I keep learning.

I spend a lot of time to meet people waiting for small boats around Kallis or Bulogne, ask them which gangs they are using, which phone numbers they have. Early morning, train stations, food distribution centers or forests and beaches are spent on the banks of the beaches. Sometimes I just see, try to melt in a crowd, listen to the conversation, to present the glimpse and gestures and to see who and who follows.

I should be careful. I go to place in different cars over the weeks, and usually try to disappear in the background. I do not want to do anything that can bring me to the attention of smugglers. They have a lot of eyes and ears, and if they become suspicious, it can be dangerous for me.

Are i scared? Not often. I have engaged with even more dangerous groups in the past. But I am worried that I can make a mistake, forget a detail, and blow my cover. Or at least one of my cover.

I also switch the phone, contact smugglers using different names and back stories, who try to work together where and what they do. I label each phone. I have French, German, Türkiye and Syrian numbers. This is a slow work. I am careful to make sure that whenever I call, I am in the right place, if the smuggler asks me to turn on his video or send a pin showing his place.

The smugglers always asked me, “Where did you get the number?” And, “Who’s with you? Where are you living? How did you go to France?”

Now Abdullah also does the same, asking me to send pictures from a bus stop in Dunkark while showing his journey in the forest.

Does he doubt me?

In the person in the forest, Abdullah appears friendly compared to most of the smugglers faced by me. I think he is eager to feel comfortable for all his passengers, always responds to the call. He kills me as ambitious.

Over time, I learn some vocabulary of the gang. The migrants are “nafar”. Junior smugglers are “Rebari”. The forest is always a “forest”.

And now the time has come for me to leave the forest and return to my team, who are eagerly waiting in a nearby supermarket.

As soon as I leave the forest and reach the road, I am no longer “Abu Ahmed”. I am a journalist again, tortured by questions.

Did the camera work? Did I manage Abdullah to confirm my role as a smuggler? Is anyone following me now?

The walk back also seems long.