MOSCOW. July 11 (Interfax) - Crimes by immigrants are on the rise, coming close to 20,000 in the first five months of 2023, the head of Russia's Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin said.
"The head of the Committee said that over a five-month period of 2023 foreigners already committed more than 18,000 crimes, the number of serious and very serious crimes committed by immigrants has risen. In the first quarter of 2023 alone, the Committee's investigative organs opened over 550 criminal cases in this category, over 500 cases were sent to courts," the committee said on Tuesday.
The bulk of such crimes were committed in Moscow and its region, and in St. Petersburg and high levels of crime by immigrants have also been recorded in the Samara, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk and Tambov regions, Bastrykin said.
"[Bastrykin] criticized the work of the [Moscow regional] directorate" on hearing a report by its acting director regarding the investigation of criminal cases in this category, the causes of their increase, and measures being taken.
"The work of the Moscow investigative committee was also criticized. The head of the Main Investigative Directorate for the city of Moscow, [Andrei] Strizhov, was shown the lack of a due procedural reaction to incidents involving migrants, and the rise in crimes committed by them. The number of opened criminal cases fell by 12%, the number of this category's criminal cases sent to courts fell by 20%," the statement said.
Bastrykin also heard reports from the heads of the Committee directorates in St. Petersburg and the Sverdlovsk, Tyumen and Kursk regions, "where there were miscalculations in the work of fighting crime in the migrant sphere."