A wide network trafficking foreign workers into Maldives, with the involvement of Maldives Immigration officers, and gaining millions in illicit financial gains, has been stopped with the top man in custody, said Maldives Police Service (MPS).
According to the agency, the man's case has been sent for prosecution.
Police revealed the man's name is Shahadat Hussain, brought to the Maldives as an office boy. Since 2014, he has lived in Maldives on four work permits, the agency also said.
In 2019, he opened three Maldivian Rufiyaa and three US Dollar bank accounts after coming to Maldives, which circulated over MVR eight million between 2019 and December 2024.
"Although Shahadat's employment document from the company to which his work permit was last transferred to had his job listed as an office boy, his salary was listed as USD 3,000. His job was listed as an office cleaner in the expat system and his salary was listed as USD 3,000 there as well," police said.
His work permit expired on July 24 last year, and up until his arrest, he had lived in a rented two bedroom apartment for MVR 18,000, police said citing their investigation.
The agency said they also went through his mobile phone and laptop, where they found company registrations, logo, stamps and multiple signatures belonging to different individuals, including foreigners.
Documents required for work permit quotas, passport copies of foreigners and ID photos of some locals were also found on his laptop, the agency went on to say, adding that his web history showed he had accessed work permit websites.
This discovery indicates that Shahadat plays a significant role in trafficking foreigners into the country for financial gain, the agency said.
"[We] found 153 business accounts of individuals, with IDs and passwords, on the expat system of his phone and laptop. Seven accounts in the name of foreign companies with ID passwords, 283 accounts in the name of private companies with ID passwords, 126 accounts in the name of various individuals , [and] five accounts with ID and passwords in the name of partnerships, where relations were established in the expat system,” police said.
"The investigation does not believe that Shahadat created the user names and passwords on the expat systems nor the login credentials of the eFaas accounts."
Police said immigration officers and many civilians trafficked foreigners into the country and released them into Malé without giving them jobs. The agency also believes those involved are making financial gains in the name of open quotas.
The investigation revealed that Shahadat's mobile phone was used to make invalid work permits which were then sent to foreigners upon transferring funds to an account in Bangladesh.
Since it is believed that he was operating with the involvement of Immigration officers and other locals, this matter is being investigated separately as well, police said.
Former Controller General Shamman Waheed and four other former Immigration employees remain in custody over the case.
