A neighborhood retail complex with a concentration of Korean restaurants near Ala Moana Center has filed for bankruptcy in the midst of a feud over control of the property that has created turmoil for tenants and left the city with $600,000 in unpaid property taxes.

Cuzco Development U.S.A. LLC, owner of the center known as Keeaumoku International Village or Keeaumoku Shopping Center, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Honolulu last week.

The filing includes a sordid account of the property’s management and ownership that includes alleged diversions of tenant rents, a fraudulent attempt to sell the property and the suspicious deaths of two principals.

One of the main aims of the bankruptcy is to prevent a bank from foreclosing on the property, though another aim appears to be recovering hundreds of thousands of dollars in allegedly diverted tenant rents and eliminating what Cuzco claims is a management entity that has fraudulently tried to control the property.

The management entity, however, claims that Cuzco is wrongly trying to break a contract and take back operation of the center.

Cuzco was formed by two investors from South Korea, Doo Sup Byun and Gunil Kim, who bought the retail complex containing about 40 tenants on 3.5 acres on Keeaumoku Street for $49 million in 2007.

A childhood friend of Byun’s, Hyung Soo Jang, began managing Keeaumoku International Village as early as 2010, but a clash emerged after Byun died in 2013 under what Cuzco said were “suspicious circumstances” and his ownership stake passed to his wife, well-known Korean singer Soo Kyung Yang, according to the bankruptcy filing.

Cuzco, now led by Byun’s widow, claims that Jang and some of Byun’s relatives tried to sell the property for their own gain and also leased the property to another company to prevent Cuzco from operating the retail complex.

Cuzco alleges that in 2014 Jang replaced the center’s property management firm, TH Realty Inc., with a friend named Kris Kim, who with Jang siphoned off hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent revenue for their benefit and failed to pay property taxes over two years.

Kim could not be reached for comment.

Byun’s wife and other Cuzco shareholders claim that they removed Jang as manager of the company in late 2014 but that Jang continued to act in the role. Then in 2015 Jang appears to have signed a master lease and then died under suspicious circumstances a few months later in South Korea. The master lease conveyed rights to operate the center to JCCho Hawaii LLC, a company led by Jae Hyon Cho, which Cuzco claims is a fraudulent arrangement.

JCCho claimed in a filing in the bank foreclosure lawsuit that it has paid Cuzco $160,000 a month under terms of the master lease to operate the center and that Cuzco has attempted to terminate retail tenant leases arranged by JCCho, including one with PC World, and improperly instructed tenants to pay their rent to Cuzco instead of JCCho.

“(Cuzco has) interfered with the business operations of JCCho and the contractual relationship between JCCho and the tenants,” JCCho said in the filing.

Meanwhile, JCCho has told other tenants such as Eco Supermarket Inc. and restaurant/pub Chick &Meck to vacate their spaces in the center because leases with Cuzco were invalid, according to documents in the bankruptcy case.

“It has come to our attention that you are currently occupying a certain space in the Keeaumoku International Village without the consent of JCCho or having a lease agreement with JCCho,” the company told the two tenants in letters dated May 16. “Therefore, JCCho considers your presence at the Keeaumoku International Village unauthorized, trespass and interfering with JCCho’s property interest.”

Cuzco responded in a May 20 letter to JCCho that Eco Supermarket and Chick &Meck have leases with Cuzco and that JCCho has no right to interfere with the tenants.

The validity of the master lease has been a subject of contention in the pending foreclosure lawsuit and a pending civil lawsuit in state court. But through bankruptcy, Cuzco is seeking to reject the master lease as an unfavorable weight on the company’s finances.

David Suh, a local attorney representing JCCho in the civil case, said the company aims to contest the attempted rejection of the master lease in bankruptcy court.

“They are using the bankruptcy proceedings to eliminate what’s been legally entered into,” he said.

Cuzco aims to have a U.S. bankruptcy judge cancel the disputed master lease. “The purported existence of the JCCho lease has severely impeded (Cuzco’s) ability to operate the Keeaumoku property and confused certain tenants,” the company said in the filing.

If the lease is rejected, Cuzco suggested that it will be able to make good on its debts given that the estimated $45 million value of its property far outweighs debts that include a $25 million bank loan, the $600,000 owed to the city and less than $500,000 owned to other creditors.

“The estate is solvent,” the company said in its filing.