• Home

Squads arrested 342 infiltrators in December: official

ABU DHABI - Immigration squads arrested 342 infiltrators last month, an official source at the Ministry of Interior said on Sunday.

The arrests were made between December 1 and December 30 as part of the ministry's crackdown on illegal immigrants, he said.

The source warned that intensive raids would continue in the next few days to crackdown on illegal immigrants, adding that the raids were being carried out on the instructions of Lt-Gen Dr Mohammed Saeed Al Badi, Minister of Interior, and Major-General Shaikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ministry's Under-Secretary. He said all those arrested during the raids would be prosecuted.

The official praised the enormous efforts put by security agencies concerned to carry out the operation to arrest the infiltrators. He also thanked the citizens who cooperated with the police through providing information, which helped in the arrest of the infiltrators.

According to a senior official at the ministry, the number of infiltrators and illegal immigrants in the country has dropped significantly, thanks to the vigilant eye of the immigration authorities.

The authorities arrested a total of 2,116 infiltrators in only one month. The offenders, who attempted to enter the country illegally, were arrested between June 1 and 30 last year.

Major-General Saif Al Shafar, Under-Secretary for Security Affairs at the Ministry of Interior, said as a result of tight measures and surveillance carried out by immigration authorities, in collaboration with the other agencies concerned, only a few cases of infiltration were being reported.

"Thanks to the close cooperation and coordination between the various security agencies and the state-of-the-art technologies used in the crackdown on illegal immigrants, the phenomenon of illegal immigration and infiltration has started to disappear," he stated.

• UAE