The Demo Site

Tokyo police confirmed they had arrested Lin Rong, 27, for entering Japan with a fake passport a year ago and then staying on illegally.

Local media said Lin was previously deported to China in 2007 for overstaying, but managed to sneak back into Japan last year after surgery to change the skin on her thumbs and index fingers.

The skin patches from the digits on her right and left hands were removed and then regrafted onto the matching digits of the opposite hand, Jiji Press news agency and major newspapers reported.

She told police she had paid some 100,000 yuan ($14,600) for the surgery, leading investigators to believe Chinese brokers are arranging such fingerprint changes, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily said.

A police spokesman said that investigators were looking into the possibility that Lin Rong had had her fingerprints altered but declined to comment in detail.

Reports said police noticed that her fingers had unnatural scars when Lin was arrested last month for faking a marriage with a Japanese man.

Japan’s biological information identification system crosschecks the fingerprints (generally of the forefinger) of foreign nationals who are entering the country against those of fugitives and deportees in its database.