Singapore jails ‘deity’ who made followers eat faeces, cheated them out of US$5.2 million

A woman who brainwashed her “spiritual” followers into believing she was a deity and subjected them to cruel punishments for disobedience, including being forced to eat faeces and having their teeth pulled out, was sentenced to jail on Wednesday.

Woo May Hoe, a 54-year-old Singaporean, was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in prison after pleading guilty to five charges including cheating and causing grievous hurt, with another 45 charges taken into consideration.

Over about eight years from 2012, Woo led of a group of about 30 followers who believed in Sri Sakthi Narayani Amma, a spiritual leader in India.

Woo convinced her followers during their regular and lengthy spiritual sessions that she was a deity who could communicate with gods and spirits, dictating that they call her “lord”.

Many of her followers sought healing for themselves or their relatives and therefore fervently followed Woo’s teachings, the court heard.

Woo taught her followers that they had to clear their “bad karma” and increase their “good karma” to improve their health, and taught them to do so by making payments to Amma in India.

She convinced her followers to declare how much money they had, warning that they would be punished by the gods if they lied, before persuading them to hand over the money to her.

She claimed that she would collate the money and transfer it to India, where it would be used for things like buying cows or building temples and schools in the country.

Woo also ordered her followers to buy houses, condominiums and cars as “a form of worship”, which she used for herself.

In total, she cheated her followers of S$7 million (US$5.2 million) between 2012 and 2020 directly. She cheated them into taking out another S$6.6 million in loans from