"I Have a Hearing Impairment": A 100% Success Rate in Housing Subscription Fraud

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A group has been apprehended by police for stealing the identities of hearing-impaired individuals to secure dozens of apartments across the country through the special housing supply program for people with disabilities. They sold the apartments at high prices to pocket the profits, maintaining a 100% success rate in their applications.

Reporter Lee Se-hyeon has the story.

[Reporter]

Two people, guided by a man, get into a car.

This is footage of a broker, identified as A, taking hearing-impaired individuals who agreed to lend their names in exchange for money to apply for housing subscriptions.

What they targeted was the special supply quota for people with disabilities. Broker A even succeeded in winning a subscription for an apartment in Gangnam, Seoul, which had an overall competition rate of 84 to 1.

The 84-square-meter apartment was priced at 2.2 billion won when it was offered in February last year, and the asking price has now risen to 4 billion won.

[Local Real Estate Agent: It is a popular unit size, after all. It is like winning the lottery.]

Over the past five years, Broker A and his accomplices illegally obtained 30 apartments through the special supply program for people with disabilities in various regions, including Seoul and Busan.

Their success rate was 100%. To increase their chances, they specifically targeted individuals with severe hearing impairments, paying them up to 20 million won to borrow their names.

Police investigations revealed that most of the down payments were covered by loans taken out in the names of the hearing-impaired individuals, and the group sold the housing rights with premiums of up to 100 million won.

For apartment complexes where resale was restricted for a certain period, they waited until the restriction expired to sell and secure their profits.

[Park Da-jeong, Superintendent/Head of Anti-Corruption Crime Investigation Team 2, Gyeonggi Bukbu Provincial Police Agency: It appears that detection was difficult because they used the method of personally accompanying the individuals with disabilities to apply for the subscriptions to avoid scrutiny.]

The police have referred Broker A, three recruiters, and 36 hearing-impaired individuals who lent their names to the prosecution for violating the Housing Act. They have also requested the forfeiture and preservation of the housing rights owned by the suspects and 470 million won in criminal proceeds.

(Video Editing: Jeong Yong-hwa, VJ: Kim Hyung-jin, Design: Park Tae-young, Footage courtesy of Gyeonggi Bukbu Provincial Police Agency)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.