Indian chief priest sentenced to jail in Singapore for pawning temple jewellery

The 39-year-old Indian chief priest of Singapore's oldest Hindu temple was sentenced to six years in jail on Tuesday for pawning over SGD 2 million ($1.5 million) of ceremonial jewellery repeatedly from a prominent temple, according to a media report.

Kandasamy Senapathi was employed by the Hindu Endowments Board as a priest at Sri Mariamman Temple in the downtown Chinatown district from December 2013 until he resigned on March 30, 2020.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of criminal breach of trust by dishonest misappropriation and two charges of transferring criminal proceeds out of the country, Channel News Asia reported. Another six charges were considered in sentencing, it said.

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Senapathi, an Indian national, was caught when the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, throwing the regular audit timing off and revealing the missing jewellery.

In 2014, he was entrusted with the keys and combination number code to the safe in the temple's holy sanctum, which contained 255 pieces of gold jewellery owned by the temple, with a book value of about SGD 1.1 million.

Senapathi began pawning pieces of the jewellery in 2016, taking them to pawn shops and later redeeming them by using money he obtained from pawning other pieces of temple jewellery.

In 2016 alone, Senapathi pawned 66 pieces of gold jewellery from the temple on 172 occasions, the report said.

He continued this practice between 2016 and 2020, redeeming all the jewellery and returning it to the temple without anyone knowing whenever an audit was scheduled. Once the audit was completed, he would pawn the jewellery again to return the borrowed money.

Senapathi got SGD 2,328,760 from pawn shops between 2016 to 2020, of which he deposited some into his bank account and remitted about SGD 141,000 to India.

In March 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Singapore, the temple had to delay an external audit because of the "circuit breaker" measures forbidding non-essential activity in the country.

During the June 2020 audit, Senapathi told a member of the temple finance team he did not have the key to the safe and said he had likely left the key in India while visiting family. However, when the staff member insisted that the audit be done, Senapathi eventually confessed that he had taken the jewellery for pawning.

In the end, all the jewellery was returned to the temple, and the temple suffered no loss, the prosecutor said.

A member of the temple's finance team later filed a police report.

Senapathi resigned from his post as he felt guilty for pawning the temple's jewellery, added the prosecutor, who asked for seven years' jail, pointing to the high pawn value of the jewellery involved.

Defence lawyer Mohan Das Naidu said it all started when Senapathi wanted to help a friend raise funds for cancer and to help schools and temples in India.

He said Senapathi's intention was "never to deprive the temple" of its jewellery, but he was "caught up in this vicious cycle of pawning and redeeming, pawning and redeeming".

In sentencing, the judge said he could not ignore that the case involved about SGD 2 million, a significant amount and higher than any previous similar cases.

In a statement after the hearing, the Hindu Endowments Board (HEB) said it had commissioned a gold audit after the incident at its four temples - Sri Mariamman, Sri Srinivasa Perumal, Sri Sivan and Sri Vairavimada Kaliamman.

The audit confirmed that all jewellery was adequately accounted for. An expert goldsmith also certified that the jewellery Senapathi had returned was authentic.

"HEB has further tightened its governance and internal controls to ensure its charitable assets remain protected," the report quoted the board as saying.