Indian priest jailed for embezzlement of temple jewelery in Singapore

The 39-year-old Indian head priest of Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple was on Tuesday sentenced to six years in jail for pawning the temple’s jewelery worth more than 2 million Singapore dollars ($1.5 million). This information was received from a media report. Kandasamy Senapathy was employed by the Hindu Charitable Board as a priest at Sri Mariamman Temple in Chinatown district since December 2013. He resigned on March 30, 2020. Senapati pleaded guilty to two charges of criminal breach of trust by embezzlement and two charges of sending criminal proceeds out of the country, Channel News Asia reported. The other six charges were taken into consideration while sentencing.

The crime of the Indian civilian commander came to light in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Senapati started pledging jewelery in 2016. Later, by mortgaging other ornaments of the temple, they were released using the money received from it. Reports said that in 2016 alone, Senapati pawned 66 gold ornaments from the temple on 172 occasions. He did similar acts several times between 2016 and 2020. Senapati received S$2,328,760 from pawnshops between 2016 and 2020, some of which he deposited in his bank account and sent about S$141,000 to India. During the audit in June 2020, Senapati told the temple’s finance team that he did not have the keys to the treasury and that he might have forgotten the keys at home during his trip to India. However, after the members insisted on an audit, Senapati confessed to his crime and admitted that he had pledged the jewellery.

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