Secretive millionaire given custody of 13 surrogate children

A Thai court has awarded paternity rights to a secretive Japanese millionaire over 13 babies he fathered through surrogate mothers.

Mitsutoki Shigeta’s case raised eyebrows in 2014 when police raided a Bangkok flat and found nine babies and nine nannies living in unfurnished rooms.

It was determined Mr Shigeta had fathered the children using Thai surrogate mothers.

The case, along with several others, helped usher in a Thai law prohibiting commercial surrogacy for foreign clients.

Bangkok’s central juvenile and family court gave Mr Shigeta sole legal custody of the children yesterday, ruling he was financially stable and had showed his plans to care for them.

The ruling said Mr Shigeta had a right to custody because the children were born before the new law was enacted and because the surrogate mothers signed documents waiving their custody rights.

Mrshigeta,28, didnotattend the court’s sessions and had a lawyer represent him.

He is the son of an owner of a Japanese company and earns more than 100 million baht (£2.3m) in annual dividends, which shows he is financially capable of looking after the children, the court said.

DNA evidence confirmed Mr Shigeta was the children’s’ father and that he plans to send them to an international school.

He has reportedly bought a piece of land to house them next to a large park in central Tokyo where they will be looked after by nurses and nannies.

The court also said Mr Shigeta had opened bank accounts in Singapore for all 13 children.

The court’s statement did little to lift the veil of mystery over Mr Shigeta, who had minimal contact with the surrogates.

After his case made headlines, a group of prominent lawyers sent letters warning Japan’smainstreammedianot to report Mr Shigeta’s name or the names of his family members.

Several Japanese magazines and online publications nonetheless identified him as a son of Japanese tycoon Yasumitsu Shigeta, founder and chief executive of Japanese communications and technology company Hikari Tsushin.

In 2014, a woman who was recruited through an online advertisement to be one of his surrogates recalled meeting Mr Shigeta for the first time two months after giving birth at the fertility clinic that arranged the deal for which she was paid US$10,000 (£7,138).

“He didn’t say anything to me,” she said.