A total of 26 fake medals were found to be at the home of Yasuhiro Kotani, a 43-year-old from Osaka, and he was subsequently arrested.

Kotani, who intended to sell the medals, reportedly told police that he purchased them online from China.

"I found them on a Chinese shopping website and bought them as I thought they would sell well," he is reported as saying by Japan Today.

According to the police, Kotani purchased a total of 80 medals from China and auctioned them on the internet in pairs.

Each pair was selling for approximately ¥4,000 yen (£26/$36/€30) on average.

The medals bore the "ichimatsu moyo" checkered patterns of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic logo, which was registered as a trademark in January and had been engraved without permission.

The design also resembled the ¥1,000 (£7/$9/€8) coins that the Government issued in 2016 to celebrate the forthcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games.