Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications files criminal charges against Toyama City for violating statistics law; suspected of inflating population in national census

On the 29th, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications accused Toyama City of inflating the city's population in the 2025 census, and filed a complaint with the Toyama Prefectural Police on suspicion of violating the Statistics Act against an unnamed city employee. According to the ministry, the number of inflated figures is at least 2,000, and multiple employees may have been involved.

Mayor Hirohisa Fujii responded to a press interview on the same day and apologized, saying, ``We sincerely apologize for the great inconvenience.''

According to the ministry, city officials are suspected of inflating the population by adding households to the list without basis, which census takers visiting the area had removed from the survey list as having no actual residence.

According to the final figures released by the ministry on the 29th, the city's population is 399,197. Preliminary figures released in May put the number at 402,133. Questions arose during the process of scrutinizing the data, and officials from the ministry's statistics department visited city hall earlier this month.

Asked by reporters whether there was a purpose to keep the number of people from falling below 400,000, Fujii denied it, saying, ``I don't think so.''

This is the first time that the ministry has filed criminal charges for violating the Statistics Act regarding the census. In the past, a 2010 investigation resulted in the conviction of the then deputy mayor of Higashiura Town, Aichi Prefecture, for inflating the population of the town to meet the 50,000 population required for the city to become a city.