A Chinese woman has been arrested for falsely registering a Japanese man as the father of her baby with the aim of gaining resident status for herself, and the man is also in custody, Saitama Prefectural Police said Friday.
Police say it is the first arrest for an alleged abuse of the registration of parenthood for an unborn child in order to obtain residency status.
According to investigators, Lin Ling, 27, who lives in Tokyo's Kita Ward but whose visa had expired, became pregnant last year.
Although the father is a 37-year-old Chinese man, she visited the Kawaguchi municipal office in Saitama Prefecture last Oct. 28 along with the Japanese man, Kazuto Tanaka, 57, and turned in a false report to have her unborn baby recognized as having been fathered by him.
Tanaka meanwhile used another Japanese name.
After the boy was born, Lin on Feb. 2 registered the birth at the city of Narashino in Chiba Prefecture, listing Tanaka, under his false name, as the father, they said.
Tanaka, a resident of Niiza, Saitama Prefecture, has also been arrested. He is suspected of receiving 300,000 yen from Lin for passing himself off as the father.
Tanaka is also alleged to have bought registry data on a Japanese man from Narashino and pretended to be that man, using his name throughout in the registrations of the baby before and after it was born.