Prosecutors said on Tuesday they had indicted 47 parents on charges of forgery as part of an ongoing investigation into a massive admission fraud case involving several international schools here.

Prosecutors said they took a 36-year-old, surnamed Kwon, into custody and indicted another 46 parents without physical detention for forging passports to help their children gain admission to international schools in Seoul and Incheon.

Under the current law, only children with a parent with foreign citizenship or who have lived overseas for more than three years are eligible to attend these schools.

But Kwon, who is reportedly the daughter-in-law of a well-known businessman, allegedly paid some 100 million won ($91,000) to a broker to acquire forged Bulgarian and U.K. passports, and used them to gain her daughter’s admission to a school in Seoul, according to Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office.

Other parents, who include seven doctors and four high-profile businessmen, are also believed to have paid between 50 million won to 100 million won to forge foreign passports in order to gain their children’s school admissions, the prosecutors said.

The Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office first launched the investigation in September, and said so far they have taken five people, including Kwon and four brokers, into custody for the case.

Prosecutors said they will report the list of parents to the Education Ministry and continue the investigation to see if officials at the international schools are involved in the case.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)