Yerevan meeting sums up the results of ‘illegal immigrant’ operation

YEREVAN, February 5. / ARKA /. Speaking today at a meeting in Yerevan of the Coordinating Council of heads of agencies of CSTO member states dealing with combating illegal migration (chaired by the head of the Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) Konstantin Romodanovsky), secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Nikolay Bordyuzha said the  meeting detailed the organization and conduct of preventive measures and special operations to combat illegal migration in 2015,  code-named "Illegal Immigrant– 2015, Novosti Armenia reported.

Bordyuzha said the goals and objectives of the operation remain unchanged – implement, along with the toughening of migration legislation, measures to cut off the known and reveal new channels of illegal migration, combat criminal activities of organized groups, engaged in the organization of illegal migration. 

He said last year the competent bodies of the CSTO revealed 158,115 instances of violations of immigration law. He said  more than $6 million worth fines had been imposed and to the tune of $3.8 million were already collected. Also 23,309 people who breached the law were expelled from CSTO member countries.

He said of 639 criminal cases started for organizing illegal migration, 19 cases involved trafficking in persons.

Bordyuzha said a characteristic feature of the operation last year was that it was carried out simultaneously with special operations by police and security forces to combat trafficking in human persons.

The meeting in Yerevan was attended by the heads of competent authorities of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan,  as well as by representatives of the Eurasian Economic Commission, the CIS Executive Committee and the Bureau of International Organization for Migration in Moscow .-- 0--