A 93-year-old Tokyo man discovered that a stranger had filed adoption papers naming him as the parent, after the ward office mailed him notice that the papers had been accepted, he told the Asahi Shimbun.
Police arrested three people, including a company executive, on suspicion of forging and using a forged adoption registration form, among other charges. The case has drawn attention to a system that lets an adoption go through without the consent of the person named.
A notice from the ward office
Mitsuya Shohei, who lives in Minato ward, said the notice arrived at his home in August. It stated that an adoption registration form naming an unknown person had been accepted on July 29 of the eighth year of the Reiwa era.
That was how he learned of the filing.
The notice explained that the ward sends such alerts because in recent years there have been cases in which false marriage and other registrations were filed without a person's knowledge, leaving inaccurate entries in family registers. The alerts are meant to help catch false filings early, the notice said.
No seal or family register copy required
An adoption registration form can be filed without a personal seal (hanko) or a copy of the family register (koseki tohon). That low bar is what makes it possible for a forged filing to pass, and elderly people with assets are a frequent target.
In this case, the filing appears to have been aimed at inheriting real estate in Akasaka, according to reports.