Main points
- Russian authorities are conducting mass inspections of marketplaces such as Ozon and Wildberries to identify illegal workers.
- The Federal Tax Service is inspecting order pick-up points and services that pay the self-employed due to suspicions of tax evasion.
Russia has launched a “hunt” for illegal immigrants / Russian media
Russian authorities have launched mass inspections of marketplaces in search of illegal employees. “Preventive visits” are expected at well-known marketplaces such as Ozon and Wildberries.
What is known about the search for illegal workers in Russia?
Rostrud was supposed to conduct a series of “preventive visits” to the divisions of Ozon, Wildberries, Yandex Market, as well as the Mega hypermarket chain, The Moscow Times writes.
The aim of these measures was to find employees in the warehouses of enterprises who, while actually being employees of the company, were not registered under an employment contract. Rostrud was to report the results of these inspections to the government by March 2.
- The Federal Tax Service has begun an audit of order pick-up points associated with marketplaces.
- The agency is mass summoning their owners and demanding documents due to suspicions of evading insurance premiums and personal income tax for employees.
- Tax authorities are also actively checking services that organize payments to the self-employed, trying to reach employer clients through them.
Employees at order pick-up points are almost always employees of partners, and the marketplace itself is not responsible for them. At the same time, warehouse employees are hired by marketplaces themselves, but most of them work under a civil law contract,
– explained HR expert Alexey Mironov.
By the way, the Russian authorities have sharply intensified the fight against shadow employment in the last two years in order to fill the budget with taxes.
In 2025, Rostrud reported the detection of 976,000 people who received salaries “in envelopes”, which is 20% more than the year before. To identify shadow employment, the authorities created interdepartmental commissions to combat the illegal sector in all regions.
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