Maldives Immigration has apprehended an expatriate who was illegally operating an unregistered guest house.

Maldives Immigration announced via Twitter that a Bangladeshi national was arrested during a routine inspection in collaboration with Maldives Police Service (MPS).

29-year-old, A. Mannan Mia was arrested for violating immigration law and illegally operating a guest house without proper registration.

Maldives Immigration recently cautioned 25 expatriates working in the Maldives without a work visa, last Wednesday.

As part of the current administration's effort to tackle the issue of undocumented migrants in the Maldives, the Ministry of Economic Development has been conducting a regularization program.

The ‘National Task-force on Issues Related to Migrant Workers’ has banned the recruitment of unskilled Bangladeshi workers for one year.

An estimate of 105,000 migrant workers currently work in the Maldives. This amount includes an overwhelming number of migrants without documentation such as passports and work visas. Immigration put the estimates at about 60000.

Migrants without passports face many challenges in obtaining new documentation. Reports have found that most migrants are either victims of human traffickers or discriminatory employers, who take away their documentation and use these migrants as slave labor.