Police Search Toyama City Office over Census Population Inflation

Toyama, Oct. 3 (Jiji Press)--Police searched the Toyama city office Saturday over suspected violations of the statistics law related to allegations that its staff inflated the central Japan city's population figure in the 2025 census.

About 10 Toyama prefectural police investigators in suits arrived at the city office around 10 a.m. with cardboard boxes in hand and headed to the fifth floor of the building, where the division in charge of census-related duties is located.

On Tuesday, the internal affairs ministry filed a criminal complaint against unidentified city staff for the alleged violations of the statistics law.

According to final figures released by the ministry on Tuesday, the city had a population of 399,197, down from the preliminary figure of 402,133 released in May. The ministry said that Toyama's population had been padded by at least 2,000, and that multiple city staff members were suspected of involvement.

Toyama Mayor Hirohisa Fujii denied at a press conference Friday that the inflation was motivated by a desire to keep the city's population above 400,000.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]