Joint Memorial Ceremony for Four Young Lives Lost to Jeonse Fraud

"No Blind Spots in the Special Act on Jeonse Fraud"
Joint Memorial for Jeonse Fraud Victims in Incheon
"Construction King" Who Took the Lives of Four Young People

The Jeonse Fraud Victim Countermeasure Committee of Michuhol-gu, Incheon held a joint memorial service at around 7 p.m. on the 3rd at Nam Square near Juan Station on the Gyeongin National Railway (Seoul Subway Line 1) in Michuhol-gu. The event was to honor the victims who recently died one after another after falling victim to jeonse fraud.

The 49th-day memorial service for the second victim who died after being defrauded in Michuhol-gu was held on the 2nd, and the 49th-day memorial service for the third victim was on the 4th. The committee also held a joint memorial service to honor the fourth victim who was found dead last month on the 24th.

[Photo by Yonhap News]

At the memorial service, Park Kyung-su, co-representative of the Michuhol-gu Jeonse Fraud and Empty Jeonse Victim Citizens' Countermeasure Committee, and Kim Byung-ryeol, vice chairman of the committee, criticized the special law on jeonse fraud passed by the National Assembly plenary session on the 25th of last month as falling short of expectations. They pointed out that the victim deposit 'rescue first, recovery later' plan demanded by the committee and civil society was excluded from the special law due to strong opposition from the ruling party, and that the guarantee of victims' deposits and housing support at the level of priority repayment were also scrapped.

The committee stated, "The government proposed a plan to provide interest-free loans equivalent to the priority repayment amount, and the opposition party agreed, so after many twists and turns, the special law was passed. There are victims who urgently need this alternative, so we could not oppose the passage of the special law, but we cannot accept this result."

They continued, "Victims who were defrauded before moving in or whose deposits exceed 500 million won are still left in the blind spots of the special law. Victims who cannot even recover the priority repayment amount are being driven into a situation of accumulating debt, no matter how interest-free the loan is. To prevent further deaths, measures to support victims in these blind spots are absolutely necessary."

Meanwhile, in Michuhol-gu, Incheon, four victims who could not recover their jeonse deposits from a group known as the 'Construction King' died one after another over three months from February to May. Mr. Nam, the so-called 'Construction King,' was arrested and indicted last month on the 15th on charges of embezzling 12.5 billion won in jeonse deposits from 161 multi-family housing units contracted between January and July last year in the Michuhol-gu area of Incheon.

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