THE Longgang police recently busted a criminal gang of 52 people involved in deceiving and coercing tenants to sign lease contracts and arbitrarily collecting rent and deposits from tenants, the Shenzhen Economic Daily reported yesterday.

This August, a graduate student identified as Xiao Na came to Shenzhen to find a job and found a rental apartment in Yuanshan Subdistrict, Longgang District, online.

According to the information on the website, the monthly rent of this one-room apartment with household appliances and furniture was only 650 yuan (US$94), while the rent for a similar apartment in the same area usually cost around 1,000 yuan.

Xiao Na immediately contacted the landlord listed on the website. The landlord told her that the apartment was very popular and that she needed to pay a deposit of 500 yuan to make a reservation.

After paying the deposit, Xiao Na went to the apartment Aug. 11. The landlord claimed that Xiao Na would have to pay a number of other expenses, including sewage, sanitation and management fees, which totaled 1,600 yuan per month.

Xiao Na said she didn’t want to rent the apartment, but the landlord said he would not refund her deposit and asked several men with tattoos to come over to intimidate her. Xiao Na signed the rental contract under pressure.

After living in the apartment for a period of time, Xiao Na wanted to drop the lease due to the poor conditions but was again refused. She later called the police for help.

After learning about the situation, the Longgang police immediately set up a special team to carry out an investigation. The police team found out that a gang of rogue landlords had been using online platforms to attract tenants by publishing information with false prices and photos. The rent was listed at significantly lower than the market price.

On Nov. 14, the special investigation group arrested more than 80 people in an action and seized a batch of account books.

The gang pleaded guilty to the charge of forcing transactions and were confirmed to have been involved in over 30 such cases.

Currently, the police have detained 52 criminal suspects and the case is under further investigation. Meanwhile, the remaining fugitives are urged to surrender to the police.

(Zhang Yu)