A Seoul court handed down heavy punishment for five people convicted of major involvement in the Daejang-dong land development scandal.

The Seoul Central District Court on Friday sentenced both Kim Man-bae, the largest shareholder of asset management firm Hwacheon Daeyu, at the center of the scandal, and Yoo Dong-gyu, a former executive at the Seongnam Development Corporation, to eight years in prison.

The court handed a four-year sentence to lawyer Nam Wook, a five-year sentence to accountant Jeong Young-hak and a six-year sentence to lawmaker Jeong Min-young.

The five people, convicted of professional breach of trust under the criminal law, were immediately remanded in custody.

The court said that by executing a contract that capped the public developer's profit at less than 50 percent of the project's return, the defendants had prevented the firm from realizing its rightful gains from the  Daejang-dong development project and enabled investors to monopolize the remaining profit.

The Daejang-dong scandal centers on allegations that some private asset management companies, including Hwacheon Daeyu, were allowed to gain excessive profits while the city incurred significant losses in Seongnam's Daejang-dong district in 2015, when President Lee Jae Myung served as the city's mayor. 

Kim, Yoo, and others drew up a public bid guideline favorable to the asset management firm and ultimately reaped a profit of 788-point-six billion won, or around 552-point-seven million U.S. dollars, after ensuring that a consortium including the firm was selected as the preferred bidder.

They also caused damage totaling 489-point-five billion won to the Seongnam Development Corporation.