Toyama City officials accused of inflating census population by 2,000+

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has filed a criminal complaint with the Toyama Prefectural Police against several Toyama City officials for suspected violations of the Statistics Act. The officials are accused of inflating the city's population by at least 2,000 people during the most recent national census.

According to the Ministry, city employees allegedly treated households reported by census takers as having ‘no actual residence’ as if they existed, or created new survey forms for non-existent households. This included suspected tampering with physical survey forms, such as erasing pencil marks to alter data. The discrepancy was discovered during the Ministry's review process for the final census figures.

As a result of the investigation, the confirmed population for Toyama City was revised downward to 399,197, nearly 3,000 fewer than the preliminary figure of 402,133 released in May.

Toyama Mayor Hirohisa Fujii issued a formal apology, describing the situation as deeply regrettable. While he stated that the motive for the inflation remains unclear and expressed doubt as to why such actions were taken, he committed to a complete organizational review to prevent future occurrences.