Some 3,000 home rental scam suspects nabbed in 10-month police crackdown

SEOUL, June 8 (Yonhap) -- A 10-month-long special crackdown on home rental scams netted the apprehension of nearly 3,000 suspects nationwide, the National Police Agency (NPA) said Thursday, highlighting the seriousness of the social problem afflicting low-income households.

The NPA said a total of 2,895 "jeonse" scam suspects were detained in the crackdown conducted from July 25 last year to May 28 and 288 of them were put under formal arrests.

Jeonse refers to a unique Korean system in which renters give landlords a large returnable deposit instead of paying monthly rent. But the long-term deposit rental system has recently emerged as a big social issue, due to a large number of jeonse fraud cases, in which scammers usually bought homes without much money through a series of jeonse contracts and refused to return the deposits at the end of the lease.

The NPA said 531 suspects, or 18 percent of the total, were accused of intentionally brokering problematic jeonse contracts or inflating the appraisal value of their rental homes.

The agency also said that many of the suspects acted like criminal organization members to commit the housing rental scams, adding a total of 31 fraud groups were busted.

In one instance, a group of 51 home owners and brokers were accused of defrauding tenants in 533 apartments and multi-family housing units in Incheon, 27 km west of Seoul, of deposits worth 43 billion won (US$32.5 million).

The NPA said 2,996 jeonse fraud victims were confirmed through its investigations and the amount of their financial damage reached 459.9 billion won.

ycm@yna.co.kr
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