Police arrested three people Tuesday on suspicion of making pornographic videos of Thai girls in Thailand, in violation of laws banning the production of child pornography.
According to police, it is the first time authorities have taken action against an alleged violation overseas of the domestic law since the child pornography law came into force last November.
Police said they have also obtained warrants for four others in the case and were looking for them.
Arrested were Akihisa Kuga, 51, president of a video manufacturing and distributing firm in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward, and two others who were not identified.
Investigators allege that Kuga and the others filmed two Thai girls, one aged 16 and the other 17, in the nude in Thailand early last December. They then made a video with the footage.
The trio are also suspected of selling videos of different Thai girls to three people, including to an unidentified 34-year-old resident of Fukushima Prefecture, sometime between last November and December, police said.
The suspects, while admitting selling the videos, denied they violated the law, claiming they believed the girls were at least 18 years old.
Kuga and the others selected the girls from about 10 assembled by a local "coordinator" in a room at a high-class Thai hotel, police said.
They then took measurements for their outfits for the videos and returned about a month later to shoot the film, they added.
Kuga began shooting and selling child porno videos around 1989, and had about 800 million yen in sales last year through direct store sales as well as over the Internet.