Immigration apprehends five irregular expats in special raid

The Maldives Immigration on Sunday evening had apprehended five irregular migrants following a special raid.

The authority, while confirming this raid on a social media post, said they conducted the operation at ‘Heenaamaage’ parking spot – a hot spot for expatriates to gather – on Sunday evening and inspected several foreigners on site.

The five in question were apprehended amid this operation, Immigration added.

The most recent consensus data shows a local population of 382,751 and an expatriate population of 132,371; with the local to expatriate population ratio at 3:1.

The current presidency, which came to power in 2023, aims at completely ridding illegal immigration and residency of irregular immigrants within the first three years of the administration’s five-year term. To achieve this objective, the government has launched a nationwide operation of collecting biometric data of all the foreigners living in the Maldives.

The Ministry of Homeland Security and Technology launched ‘Operation Kurangi’ in accordance with the instructions of President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, to completely solve illegal migration.

According to the ministry’s most recent statistics, the efforts led by it has collected biometric data of more than 100,000 foreigners in the last 10 months.