Police Arrest Gang for Secretly Changing Tenant Addresses to Obtain Loans

Proposal for System Improvement to the Executive Branch

A fraud ring that secretly changed the address of a jeonse tenant to another location and took out a loan worth hundreds of millions of won using the house as collateral was caught by the police.

On the 21st, the Guro Police Station in Seoul announced that they have booked and are investigating a man in his 30s, Mr. A, and a man in his 20s, Mr. B, on charges of fraud, forgery of private documents, and violation of the Resident Registration Act.

Police image. [Image source=Yonhap News]

Mr. A, the landlord who secretly transferred the tenant Mr. Kim’s address from Guro-gu to Seongbuk-gu in Seoul, conspired with other accomplices to change Mr. Kim’s address and then obtained a housing mortgage loan worth over 100 million won. Mr. B is suspected of visiting the Seongbuk-gu Administrative Welfare Center in Seoul without Mr. Kim’s knowledge to file a false change of address report, forging seals, and preparing a fraudulent change of address form. It is known that Mr. B falsely registered a total of three victims as residents of Seongbuk-gu, Seoul.

The police also arrested three other accomplices who committed similar secret address transfer fraud in Guro-gu, Seoul, from October last year to January this year. They moved the addresses of four jeonse tenants living in Guro-gu, Seoul, to Ulsan City and then obtained housing mortgage loans. The police arrested two homeowners earlier this month and booked one accomplice who filed the false change of address report without detention for investigation.

As cases of jeonse fraud exploiting the change of address registration system have surged, the police have recommended the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to improve the system.