Over 700 illegal migrants detained in police raid in St Petersburg

About 700 people were taken to police stations on Friday after a police raid against illegal migrants Apraksin Dvor district in the centre of Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg. “About 700 people were taken to police stations,” a spokesman for the St. Petersburg police department told Itar-Tass. “As many as 482 of them were released after a check. About 140 people were referred to the migration services to be checked for the compliance with Russian migration laws. Twenty two persons, whose identity has not been established, are kept at the police station. Thirty were recognized as violators of the procedure of stay in Russia’s territory.” According to the spokesman, it was a regular police raid. Apraksin Dvor is a site of a big consumer goods market and a “point of attraction” for numerous illegal migrants. In another raid on August 6, St. Petersburg’s police and migration officers detained more than 300 illegal migrants at a wholesale base in Nepokorennykh Avenue. Over a hundred illegal migrants were detained in a similar raid at wholesale markets in the Frunzensky district and near Sennaya Square on August 1.