Back in 2022, a Singaporean woman faced over 50 charges for pretending to be a deity and forcing her followers to eat faeces, among other offences.
The woman, now aged 54, was sentenced to 10-and-a-half-years jail after pleading guilty to five charges, which included cheating and causing grievous hurt.
Another 45 charges were considered at the time of sentencing.
Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reported that Ms Woo May Hoe led a group of about 30 followers who believed in Sri Sakthi Narayani Amma — an Indian spiritual leader — from 2012 to 2020.
Source: Sri Narayani Peedam
She convinced them during their spiritual sessions that she was a deity who could communicate with gods and spirits. Woo also ordered them to call her “lord”.
The Straits Times (ST) reported that most of the followers obeyed Woo’s teachings as they or their relatives were suffering from serious medical conditions.
Woo claimed that it was important for her followers to remove their “bad karma” and enhance their “good karma” by making payments to Amma’s society.
She also persuaded the followers to declare how much money they had and convinced them to hand money over to her. She claimed she would use the funds to buy cows and build temples and schools in India.
Additionally, Woo ordered her followers to purchase houses, condominiums, and cars as a “form of worship”. She ended up using all of these for herself.
In total, Woo cheated her followers of about S$7 million between 2012 and 2020. She also tricked them into borrowing another S$6.6 million in loans.
Woo has since made S$675,000 in restitution.
In addition to the material ‘tributes’, Woo also ordered a third of her followers to stay with her and serve her on a full-time basis. A few of them were even told to quit their jobs.
Followers would be subjected to punishments if they did not obey Woo completely. These punishments include:
These punishments, either executed by Woo or other followers, resulted in permanent injuries for some followers.
The injuries included the loss of several teeth and an eye injury from caning.
Followers who tried to leave would receive spam calls and threats of their downfall.
In Oct 2019, Woo got angry with a follower after finding out that she had borrowed S$100 without her permission.
Furious, she told the woman to jump down from the second floor of a building at Ubi Techpark.
The follower reportedly climbed over the railing but started crying as she grew afraid.
Sensing her hesitation, Woo told her that another follower would push her down if she did not jump.
The follower eventually obeyed Woo’s instruction but sustained ankle fractures as a result.
The offences only came to light in 2020 after some followers lodged police reports against her, claiming they were physically abused and that they had lost their life savings to her.
The police subsequently arrested Woo in Oct 2020.
Woo was later found to be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when she committed the offences.
However, ST reported that the condition was found to have no contributory link to her cheating offences.
According to CNA, the prosecution sought nine to 12 years’ jail for Woo, noting her “reign of terror” over her followers and how she abused their trust to “bleed them dry of their life savings”.
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Featured image by MS News.
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