EXCLUSIVE: Toronto police have yet to investigate man accused of rental fraud

By Adrian Ghobrial and CiCi Fan

Toronto police said they have yet to investigate a man accused of swindling eight international students out of tens of thousands of dollars.

Moreover, it’s alleged the man, Bum Joon Kim, has still been in contact with those he’s accused of scamming. He may have taken money from more victims as recently as Thursday night, hours after CityNews confronted him in person.

This week, a CityNews investigation revealed Kim is wanted on 13 fraud-related charges dating back to 2014 in British Columbia, where he’s accused of defrauding a small business out of some $50,000. He has reportedly been posing as a landlord and condo owner in Toronto.

International students from Japan and Korea said he showed them at least three residential units at three different buildings downtown.

They said each time he’d ask for rent money up front and promise a move-in date, which would come and go with no keys exchanged.

CityNews spoke with eight alleged victims in Toronto, who said altogether Kim scammed them out of around $33,000 in cash.

Toronto police told CityNews they are not yet able to comment on the case.

“(The investigators) have not had the time to look into the case, interview victims or witnesses or look at the record of the alleged accused,” spokesman Const. David Hopkinson said in an email.

“Unfortunately these investigations take time. When we have investigated it, we will then comment.”

Earlier this week, CityNews asked the RCMP how Kim was able to move to Ontario and allegedly continue defrauding people despite a province-wide warrant for his arrest in B.C.

“It really depends on a case-by-case basis how much cooperation we have between jurisdictions,” Cpl. Michael McLaughlin of the Coquitlam RCMP said. “We do share information whenever we can legally do so and that is something we are exploring in this particular instance.”

The B.C. RCMP is considering expanding the province-wide warrant to a Canada-wide warrant.

On Friday morning, an ad was posted again on Kijiji for a Front Street apartment shown to Kim’s alleged victims. This time, the monthly rent was higher.


Related stories:

EXCLUSIVE: Confronting an alleged rental fraudster in Toronto

EXCLUSIVE: Students say they were scammed by man posing as Toronto landlord


Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today