Major Immigration inspection in Hulhumale’

The Maldives Immigration on Sunday conducted a major inspection across Hulhumale’ to identify illegal immigrants and foreigners that operate businesses illegally.

This island-wide operation is the latest in the ongoing crackdown by the enforcement agency to control the expatriate population in the Maldives. The authority, with the assistance from other relevant agencies, have raided multiple venues and deported several hundreds of immigrants with violations over the last 10 months.

Maldives Immigration was joined by Maldives Police Service, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Health Protection Agency (HPA), and Maldives Food and Drug Authority (MFDA) on Sunday’s operation, that was carried out across Hulhumale’ Phases I and II.

While speaking with ‘Sun’, the Controller General of Immigration Shamman Mohamed said that immigrants with overdue expat fees and expatriates at wrong work sites are the two most frequent issues the authority has observed through their operations.

“Basically, even if the worker’s visa has been paid regularly, if they are employed at a work site that has not been permitted for them, it would constitute an offence as per regulations, which is also the most frequent offence type,” Shamman said.

Shamman also highlighted receiving reports of absconding foreign workers, who have acted as recruiters. He confirms arresting multiple individuals like these already.

Teams were dispatched to a total of 27 zones across both Hulhumale’ Phases. Officers had inspected multiple venues including cafés, restaurants, shop outlets and other work sites.

Through Sunday’s inspection, the authority had discovered multiple immigrants working at sites that were not originally permitted to them. Immigration issued notices to such individuals, which demanded a summoning to the authority within a specified period.

Authorities also attempted to find culpable and evasive expatriates during Sunday’s inspection.

Immigration had detained, and subsequently deported more a total of 4,054 immigrant offenders through the last 10 months.