Fayyaz: Deported men should have been arrested, investigated

Economic Minister Fayyaz Ismail says it would have been better if the two foreign citizens – alleged ‘masters’ of illegal recruitment of expatriate workers in Maldives – had been arrested and investigated instead of being deported.

The two men – both Bangladeshi citizens – had been deported by Maldives Immigration earlier this September.

The decision to deport the two men – instead of arresting and investigating them – had been widely criticized by the Maldivian public.

Speaking on RaajjeTV’s Fala Suruhee show last Saturday, Economic Minister Fayyaz said the two men should have been arrested and investigated if they were suspected of running large-scale criminal activities in Maldives.

“Actually, it would have been better if they had been arrested and if they had been investigated to identify the other foreign citizens or Maldivian citizens they were in cohorts with,” said Fayyaz.

He said that it was implausible they had run the criminal activities alone given how long they are suspected to have been running their operations for.

He said the decision to deport them instead of investigating them had closed the door to collecting additional intelligence on their operations.

“It’s not an issue of concern when regular expatriates are deported for violation of law. But the people identified as heads should be investigated, to find out how far the roots extend to,” said Fayyaz.

Economic Ministry estimates the population of undocumented expatriate workers in Maldives to be close to 63,000. It has recently imposed a temporary one-year ban on recruitment of unskilled laborers from Bangladesh, and has launched a regularization program for undocumented workers.