Police now believe 16 people were behind a fraud scheme involving one-thousand-139 multiplex housing and studio apartment units.

According to an official from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Monday, eleven additional people, including realtors, have been booked on fraud charges in the lump-sum "jeonse" rental scandal.

The latest suspects join five others identified by the police earlier for their involvement in the case surrounding a landlord dubbed a “villa king” who was found dead late last year, leaving hundreds of renters in deposit-retrieval limbo.

In a separate yet similar case of another owner of 240 housing units in western Seoul found dead on Jeju Island in 2021, the police arrested the head of a consulting firm, identified by the surname Shin, as the main culprit behind the rental scam.

Since last July, the police have investigated 119 such rental fraud cases and have so far referred 109 related suspects to the prosecution.

Source: KBS World Radio