OSAKA -- The parents of a 6-year-old girl have been arrested for receiving a childcare allowance for six years after their daughter had apparently died, it's been learned.

Osaka Prefectural Police arrested the 53-year-old father and the 35-year-old mother of a girl in Higashisumiyoshi Ward for fraud.

The parents told police after their arrest on Feb. 9 that their daughter died right after she was born six years ago and they discarded her body in the sea in Aichi Prefecture. The prefectural police force will investigate how the girl went missing as the parents' explanation is suspicious.

According to police, the girl was born at a hospital in Osaka on May 11, 2006. Officials confirmed that she left the hospital in a healthy condition about a week later. The parents submitted her birth record and an application for a childcare allowance shortly afterwards to the Higashisumiyoshi Ward office. However, from the parents' explanation, police suspect that the girl had already been dead by the time they submitted the documents to the ward office.

The parents stand accused of deceiving the ward office to receive the childcare allowance for one year until June 2007 -- a total of 120,000 yen -- after hiding the girl's death and submitting the application on May 19, 2006. However, the total amount of the child allowance paid to the parents until January this year is 934,000 yen. The parents have admitted to the fraud, saying that they "needed the child allowance to get by."

According to her resident record, the girl was living with her parents and two older brothers. She was absent from an orientation meeting for an elementary school she was to attend in spring. When the school and the city government questioned the mother about the girl, she told them that her daughter had passed away. The mother also explained that she had submitted a notice of death and had a funeral with only family members. The fraud was discovered when the municipal government consulted about the case with prefectural police on Feb. 7.