‘Is my secret camera working?’

The findings of a year-old secret investigation into a violent immigrant illegal gang were published by BBC News on August 5-and as a result, a person was now arrested in Birmingham.

Here, one of our reporters who have a false identity and migratory as an immigrant tells how the gang met one of the senior members of a hidden forest hiding point.

I walk towards the forest near Dunkirk, thinking of the battery in my pocket. I hid the wires under two T -shirts, but is there anything still shown? Does my hidden camera work? Is it showing the upright angle? There is a maximum of three hours of battery life and I have to go to the smuggler’s secret camp, meet him and get out safely.

This is perhaps the most dangerous and most important moment for me, the team working on this investigation with the team for months.

There is a small team of high -risk consultants watching my back. While gang members watch everyone entering the forest, I am worried that my advisors can reveal me instead of protecting me. But they play perfectly and hold a low profile.

I use a wrong name. My clothes are similar to those who are worn by other people trying to get on a small boat in England. Flash, old shoes. Big, hot, dirty, jacket. It’s a backpack that I spent time to try to look worn out as if you’ve traveled long, hard miles to come here.

I continue to pass over my story. Excuses that I have to escape quickly. Possible scenarios. We planned and planned, but I know that nothing goes exactly as expected.

I am an Arabic -speaking man and I have been hidden before – but every time he carries different and different risks.

For the last few years, I have spent a long time in Northern France, and I have tried to understand and reveal the complex and shaded operations of people’s smugglers. It was not an easy decision to infiltrate a violent crime network.

I enter a world governed by money, power and silence. But I just don’t worry – I also believe that the gangs are not as untouchable as they seem, and that I can help them reveal and maybe stop them.

My tension disappears in the forest. Now I am “Abu Ahmed” – my fake identity. I don’t even feel that I play a role.

I am new in the city, a Syrian refugee rejected by Germany. I was scared, desperate, disappeared a little and I’m on the beginning of an uncertain journey.

I’m walking on a road trying to remember the way smugglers come to the camp.

When smuggler Abdullah meets me, he’s friendly, but he says he has to leave immediately. I’m trying to come tired. While my battery is still working, I have to convince him to wait for him, to talk to me quickly. Then I can get out of there.

Abdullah suspects anything and looks completely comfortable. But I know the smugglers have weapons and knives, and there is only one way to the camp.

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

One of the most difficult things hidden in the weeks before meeting Abdullah is to follow the phone numbers. Gang members often change them and sometimes lose work for months in a second. Sometimes I lost hope, I saw everything disintegrated. But I continue to learn.

I spend a lot of time to meet people waiting for small boats around Calais or Boulogne, ask which gang they use it, and which phone numbers they use. Early morning at train stations, food distribution centers, or on the edge of forest and beaches. Sometimes I watch, to melt a crowd, to hear conversations, to identify the gaze and gestures, and to see who leads and who follows.

I have to be careful. For weeks, I move to different cars from the ground and often try to get lost in the background. I don’t want to do or say anything that may attract the attention of smugglers. They have a lot of eyes and ears here, and if they are suspicious, it can be dangerous to me.

Am I afraid? Not too often. In the past, I have dealt with more dangerous groups. But I’m worried that I can make a mistake, forget a detail, and blow my cover. Or at least one of my lids.

I’m changing the phones, using different names and back stories to bring together where and what they’re doing. I tag every phone. I have numbers French, German, Turkish and Syria. Slow work. If the smuggler asks me to open my video or send me a pin that shows my position, I care to make sure that I am in the right place when I call.

The smugglers always told me, “Where did you get the number?” And, “Who is with you? Where are you staying? How did you come to France?”

Now Abdullah is doing the same, he wants me to send photos of my journey from a bus stop in Dunkirk.

Does he suspect me?

Personally in the forest, Abdullah seems more friendly than most of the smugglers I have encountered. I noticed that it was willing to make all his passengers feel comfortable by responding to the calls. He hits me with ambitious.

Over time, I learn some of the vocabulary of the gang. Immigrants are “Nafar”. Young smugglers “Rebari”. The forest is always “forest”.

And now it’s time to leave the forest and return to my team waiting with anxiety in a nearby supermarket.

When I leave the forest and depart, I am no longer “Abu Ahmed”. I am a journalist again, torturing with questions.

Did the camera work? Did I manage to film Abdullah as a smuggler? Does anyone follow me now?

The walking back looks even longer.