Police called his home a 'baby factory'. He said he wanted a large family.

It’s a case as bizarre as it is creepy.

A man who fathered 16 surrogate children is being investigated after police uncovered a so-called ‘baby factory’ at his apartment — but he insists he’s innocent and simply wanted a large family.

A raid of 24-year-old Japanese businessman Mitsutoki Shigeta’s Bangkok apartment earlier uncovered nine babies, The Guardian reports. Thai police say the infants were found earlier this month. At the time, they were being cared for by nine nannies in unfurnished rooms containing playpens, nappies, bottles and bouncy chairs.

Shigeta is the father of those babies and seven more — and he plans to father hundreds, according to the fertility clinic that introduced him to two of the surrogate mothers.

“As soon as they got pregnant he requested more,” founder of the New Life clinic Mariam Kukunashvili said.

“He said he wanted 10 to 15 babies a year, and that he wanted to continue the baby-making process until he’s dead,” she said. She added Shigeta had even inquired about equipment to freeze his sperm so he could continue fathering children in his old age.

Interpol has launched an international investigation into the case, now known as the “baby factory” case, although Shigeta has not been charged.

“What I can tell you so far is that I’ve never seen a case like this,’ Thailand’s Interpol director, police Major General Apichart Suribunya said.

“We are trying to understand what kind of person makes this many babies,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

Thai police Lieutenant General Kokiat Wongvorachart said authorities were looking into two motives.

“One is human trafficking and the other is exploitation of children,” he said.

But Ms Kukunashvili told Sky News Shigeta had told a clinic worker “he wanted to win elections and could use his big family for voting.”

“The best thing I can do for the world is to leave many children,” Shigeta reportedly said.

Shigeta’s former lawyer Ratpratan Tulatorn told Thailand’s Channel 3 television station his client had done nothing wrong.

“These are legal babies, they all have birth certificates,” he said. “There are assets purchased under these babies’ names. There are savings accounts for these babies, and investments. If he were to sell these babies, why would he give them these benefits?”

The 12 children in Thailand are currently being cared for by authorities, and Shigeta is reportedly trying to get them back.

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