"The first three months of the year saw 138 militants detained and 21 others eliminated," Alexander German said in a posting on the ministry's Web site.
He also said 106 suspected militants had voluntarily turned themselves in over the period.
Since the start of 2007, the ministry has solved 1,251 crimes committed in the troubled republic - a 1.2-fold increase on last year.
"The number of solved crimes has increased in almost all areas [of Chechnya] and on a whole range of crimes, including terrorist acts, killings, attempts on the life of police, robbery, theft, and embezzlement," he said.
In the first quarter of the year, Russian interior forces in Chechnya seized 127 firearms, over 40,000 rounds of ammunition, 653 mines and shells, 338 grenades, 19 homemade explosive devices, and more than 100 kilograms of explosives, German said.
Speaking of economic crime, German said 590 such offenses have been uncovered and 130 suspects indicted since the beginning of the year.
Pro-Kremlin Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, himself a one-time warlord, said in March that all illegal armed groups operating in the republic would be eliminated within two months' time.
Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Yedelev told the official Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper in February that 46 such groups, numbering around 450 members overall, are thought to be still active in Chechnya.
More than 600 militants in Chechnya and adjacent provinces reportedly surrendered their arms last year in response to a six-month amnesty declared by the Russian government July 15 for those not involved in any serious crimes.
The amnesty followed the killing by federal troops of Chechnya's warlord and number one terrorist, Shamil Basayev, who was behind the 2004 Beslan school siege and other atrocities.
