SEOUL, A notorious home rental scammer convicted of defrauding 191 tenants of 14.8 billion won (US$11.2 million) after signing “jeonse” contracts was given the maximum prison sentence for fraud by a court Wednesday.

The Incheon District Court in Incheon, 27 kilometers west of Seoul, sentenced the 62-year-old fraudster, surnamed Nam, to 15 years in prison and ordered a forfeiture of criminal proceeds worth 11.55 billion won.

The court also handed out prison sentences, ranging from four to 13 years, to nine accomplices, including real estate agents and brokerage assistants.

Jeonse refers to a unique Korean system in which tenants give landlords a large returnable deposit instead of paying monthly rent. Jeonse scammers usually buy multiple homes using the deposit money as leverage and later refuse to return the deposits at the end of the lease.

Nam and his accomplices were indicted for swindling the 191 tenants of apartments and villas in Incheon’s Michuhol district between March 2021 and July 2022.

The to
tal amount of swindling allegedly committed by Nam is 45.3 billion won taken from 563 tenants, and he thus is standing a separate trial on charges related to jeonse scams worth 30.5 billion won.

He was once nicknamed the “construction king” for owning about 2,700 apartments and “officetels,” studio apartments in multipurpose buildings, in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds Seoul. Four of his fraud victims took their own lives between February and May of last year.

The court said Nam must bear huge responsibility for the damage caused by his greedy ownership of 2,708 properties, noting four people in their 20s and 30s died by suicide due to the suffering caused by his rental scams.

Notably, the court argued for revising the current laws to increase the statutory maximum sentence for fraud, stressing the need to more sternly punish vicious fraudsters who destroy people’s housing stability, dreams and social trust.

Source: Yonhap News Agency