Toyama city hall searched over alleged overreporting of population

Police searched the Toyama City Hall on Saturday as part of an investigation into allegations that city staff inflated the population figure. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the city's population was padded by at least 2,000. The preliminary census population figure of 402,133 was used to calculate local allocation tax grants for fiscal 2026, with the city possibly receiving about ¥60 million more than it should have.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs filed a criminal complaint against unidentified city staff for alleged violations of the statistics law on Tuesday. The final population figure released by the ministry was 399,197, down from the preliminary figure. Toyama Mayor Hirohisa Fujii denied that the inflation was motivated by a desire to keep the city's population above 400,000, stating that there were no instructions from senior officials to inflate the figure.

About 10 investigators from the Toyama Prefectural Police conducted the search, which took place on the fifth floor of the city hall where the division in charge of census-related duties is located. The mayor stated that he would take due responsibility at the appropriate time.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Mainichi, Japan Times — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.