A month after Japanese police found the three-decade-old body of a man who had been believed to be 111, they arrested his daughter and granddaughter yesterday for suspected pension fraud, local media reported.

The arrests were the first since the grisly discovery in a Tokyo flat triggered a nationwide search to check on the conditions and whereabouts of hundreds of other centenarians listed in Japanese official records.

Police arrested 81-year-old Michiko Kato, the daughter of mummified Sogen Kato, on suspicion she illegally received about nine million yen ($106,000) in pension payments, the reports said.

Her daughter Tokimi Kato, 53, was also arrested, according to the Kyodo news agency, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper and other major media. Tokyo Metropolitan Police declined to immediately confirm the reports.

Municipalities across the coun­try have said they are conducting face-to-face meetings with people registered as aged over 100 since the discovery of Mr Kato’s remains.

So far about 200 centenarians have been found to be missing from the places where they were last registered.

In another case, the remains of a Tokyo woman believed to be 104 were found stuffed into her son’s backpack, where they had been for more than a decade.

Fast-greying Japan, with its world-beating life expectancies, had more than 40,000 centenarians at last count, but that figure may have to be revised amid complaints of widespread sloppy bureaucratic paperwork.

City halls around Japan have been forced to admit having thousands of centenarians registered as alive who may in fact be dead.

Himeji City in Hyogo Prefecture said Thursday that family registries have been retained for more than 900 people aged 120 or older, including a man who would be 170 years old if he was alive.

Jiji Press reported that a 186-year-old man in Yamaguchi, western Japan was still officially listed as alive on the family register.