June 17, 2015
Fontanka.ru
Almost a thousand people have been deported from Russia during a “cleanup” of Petersburg for the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum, which starts tomorrow, June 18. Regional units of the Federal Migration Service carried out large-scale raids on apartments and hotels in search of suspicious foreigners.
As Fontanka.ru has learned, the cleanup had been planned several months ago and had been underway since April in eight districts of the city, those that will host SPIEF events. In addition to Vasilyevsky Island, immigration control has been strengthened in the Central, Petrograd, Admiralty, Moscow, Kirov, Krasnoe Selo, and Pushkin districts.
As a result of more than two thousand raids by the regional FMS office, 947 foreigners were expelled and deported for various violations of immigration laws. Simultaneously, more than ninety crimes involving drugs and weapon trafficking, as well as documents forgery, were solved. Nearly six thousand police charge sheets for administrative violations were issued, and the amount of fines imposed on foreigners was in excess of nine million rubles [approx. 147,000 euros].
The FMS’s Petersburg and Leningrad Region office confirmed to Fontanka.ru that the planned actions had been implemented in advance of the SPIEF.
According to the information made available to us, during the cleanup of Vasilyevsky Island, not only were abandoned buildings and buildings under construction checked but so too were taxi bus stands, service stations, tire shops, car washes, and subway ventilation shafts.
Translated into English by TheRussiaReader.