Toyama police searched city hall on Saturday after the internal affairs ministry filed a complaint alleging a city official overreported the population, the first such census complaint by the ministry.
Police searched Toyama city hall on Saturday over the alleged overreporting of the city's population by a city official, Kyodo News reported. The search followed a criminal complaint filed on Tuesday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
The ministry complained to Toyama police that an unidentified city official had violated the Statistics Act in connection with the census figures. Kyodo said it was the first time the ministry had taken that step over a census.
Population counts feed into national transfers, electoral administration and local planning. An overstated census figure, if confirmed, would affect those calculations for Toyama.
The official has not been named in the Kyodo account. The complaint refers to an unidentified city employee, and the Saturday search was the police step that followed the ministry filing.
No charge or court outcome was reported on Saturday. The investigation is at the search stage after the ministry's complaint.