A 39-year-old Hindu priest at Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple was jailed for six years on Tuesday for repeatedly pawning jewelry
Published Date – Tue, 30 May 23 at 07:00pm
Photo: IANS
Singapore: A 39-year-old Indian priest at Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple was jailed for six years on Tuesday for repeatedly pawning jewelry worth more than US$1 million (Singapore) to adorn statues of temple deities, according to media reports.
According to The Straits Times, Kandasamy Senapathi of Sri Mariamman Temple on South Bridge Road earned a total of US$2.3 million (Singapore) by pawning temple jewels for more than 5 years.
He pleaded guilty to two counts, one of breach of trust by an employee and the other of removing the benefit of his criminal activity from the jurisdiction.
Six similar charges were reportedly considered in sentencing the Indian national.
Deputy public prosecutor Janice See told the court that Kandasamy was employed by the Hindu Endowment Board (HEB) in December 2013 and promoted to chief priest of the temple in July 2018.
In 2014, he was entrusted with the key and combination of the temple’s shrine safe, which contained approximately 255 pieces of gold jewelry worth approximately US$1.1 million (Singapore).
From 2016 to 2020, Kandasamy pawned 66 pieces of jewelry out of 172 pawns, totaling (Singapore) US$2,328,760.
He deposited some of the money into his personal bank account and sent (Singapore) US$141,054.90 to India.
As long as he knew an audit would be scheduled, he could have borrowed enough to redeem the pawned jewels, so his activities went undetected, The Times reported.
After checking the accounts, he had to pawn the jewels in the temple again and return the borrowed money.
In June 2020, Kandasamy told a member of the temple’s financial team who was arranging a routine external audit that he had likely left the keys to the safe in India when he visited family there.
Aware that the audit would go ahead as planned, Kandasamy admitted pawning the jewels on July 2, 2020 and made a report to the police on July 29, 2020.
Since then, all 66 pieces of jewels he had pawned were returned to the temple without any loss and Kandasamy is no longer working at HEB.
Kandasamy’s lawyer told the court his client’s actions were a “stupid venture” to help friends in India, including a friend whose mother had cancer, and schools in his hometown.
