Immigration has detained 16 illegal immigrants following raids conducted in four locations in Male' City.

In a post on X on Thursday, Immigration said that 16 illegal immigrants were detained under Operation Kurangi as part of the authority's efforts to address the issue of illegal immigrants.

Since the operation commenced, in partnership with police, the authorities have been conducting raids daily and over 100 immigrants have been detained so far, Immigration said.

Home Minister Ali Ihsan said that phase I and II of the operation was to collect fingerprints of all foreign nationals living in Maldives and to identify illegal immigrants. As such, during phase I of the operation, policies were formulated to develop the application which was given to island councils during phase II of the operation.

"Through this app, when the councillors take pictures of a suspected foreigner, the councils will get to know the name of the foreigner and all the names, including which company he entered from and on what date his visa was last renewed," the minister said.

He said empowering the councils to check illegal immigrants ended the first part of finding a permanent solution to the problem, adding that the government has set a deadline of three years to identify migrant workers in the country and what it will do in the second and third years is to bring the identified people under the legal framework.