As part of the ongoing efforts to collect information on expatriates under “Operation Kurangi” conducted by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Culture, information on more than 25,000 expatriates has been collected so far. Operation Kurangi was launched on May 2 of last year. The main objective of this operation is to collect fingerprints, photos, and information of all expatriates in the Maldives within one year.
As the activity began in Male’ today, Minister of Home Affairs Ali Ihsan said that from today’s work, the fingerprints of 10 fingers and facial recognition photos of 1,455 expatriate workers were taken and the database was updated. The Minister said that when President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu addressed the nation on November 17 last year, he had announced that biometric data of 10,000 expatriates had been collected in this operation. He added that in the past two months, information of more than 15,000 additional expatriates was collected, bringing the total number of expatriates whose biometric data has been collected in the entire operation to 25,483.
“In line with President Dr. Muizzu’s pledge, this work being done under a three-year plan to find a permanent solution to the issue of illegal expatriates in the Maldives will, God willing, be successfully completed in April 2027,” the Minister said. The Minister acknowledged and thanked the hard work of the Foreign Labor Department, Immigration, Police, Home Sector employees, and councils in this effort.
