According to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, Jeon Cheong-jo was arrested last year and accused of stealing more than 3 billion won (€2.1 million) from 27 people between April 2022 and last October. Jeon was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Wednesday. A spokesman for the Seoul Eastern District Court told AFP, without giving further details.

Jeon "ruined the lives of countless people by defrauding everyone around her," Judge Kim Byeong-cheol said during the sentencing, according to Yonhap.

"The damage has reached 3 billion won, and most of the damage has not been compensated," he added.
Jeon apparently posed as an heir to a chaebol, or family-owned conglomerate, and lured victims with exclusive investment opportunities available only to the ultra-rich, according to Yonhap and AFP.

The case first came to public attention in October, when Nam announced her engagement and gave an interview to a magazine with her fiancé. In the interview, she said Jeon was the son of a wealthy family in the casino industry. Worldwide attention was drawn to the former fencer's importance in the country.

However, local media quickly revealed court documents showing that Jeon was legally a woman. She had previously been convicted of fraud.

Nam, a former fencer who won Olympic medals at Beijing 2008 and London 2012, ended the marriage. She claimed she had been deceived and was unaware of her ex-partner's criminal past. Nam has also been the subject of a police investigation. The athlete ran a fencing club in Seoul's exclusive Gangnam district after retiring in 2019. She has been banned from leaving South Korea.

Jeon's testimony claimed that much of the money was spent on Nam. It included buying a new Bentley and paying off her loans. The court on Wednesday ordered the confiscation of luxury handbags and other items that Jeon had bought with illegal proceeds and then given to Nam, Yonhap news agency reported.