Jail for foreign ‘astrology guru’ who duped victims in S’pore into giving him $38k in cash, jewellery

SINGAPORE – A self-professed astrology and palm-reading guru duped four people in Singapore into handing him over $38,000 worth of money and jewellery for purported religious rituals.

One of his victims finally made a police report after smelling something fishy.

On Jan 27, Indian national Allam Narasimha, 58, was jailed for nine months after he pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal breach of trust. Two other similar charges were taken into consideration.

Defence lawyer S. Balamurugan of Regal Law had asked for a shorter sentence of seven months, saying Allam would be subject to scrutiny and embarrassment back home.

Pointing to his client in the dock, Mr Balamurugan said: “As an astrologer, he couldn’t predict his own downfall.”

Deputy Public Prosecutor Wayde Chan said Allam came to Singapore in September 2024 and started deceiving victims by targeting their religious beliefs.

Allam and an unknown person, whom he claimed was his son, placed a Facebook advertisement touting his purported expertise. Victims who were interested in Allam’s services contacted them.

Allam would then claim that there were “evil spirits” and “negative forces” surrounding the victims, and said that if they gave him money and jewellery, he would use the items to conduct personalised rituals in India for their benefit.

But he did no such thing, and instead misappropriated money and jewellery worth a total of $38,019.

Married couple fell for lies

Two of Allam’s victims were a married couple. Allam’s “son” had told the wife that she could not have children as she was under “black magic”.

He claimed that if she gave Allam $450, personalised religious rituals would be conducted for her over 21 days in India to give her good luck.

Subsequently, Allam claimed the husband was similarly under “black magic” and $920 was required to conduct rituals for his protection.

One week later, Allam said very strong “spirits” were trying to harm the husband. This time, he asked for gold and about $19,000 in cash.

He sent photos and videos purportedly showing rituals being conducted for them. But the rituals and prayers never actually happened, and some of the photos he sent were stock images he found online, said DPP Chan.

Allam also promised to melt and recast gold jewellery the couple gave him into a sculpture to be thrown into a water body.

Unbeknown to the couple, the replica sculpture he gave them to throw into the waters off Bedok Jetty was not made from their jewellery, which Allam had kept.

On Oct 28, 2024, Allam claimed his two assistants in India were injured by “evil spirits” and told the couple he had to return to India urgently to conduct further rituals.

He asked them to give him two mobile phones as gifts for his assistants by the next day. Feeling suspicious, the wife made a police report.

Allam was arrested the next day. The authorities raided his home in Singapore and found gold jewellery belonging to the victims.

He returned the victims’ items, but DPP Chan pointed out that this was only done more than a year after he was arrested.

“(This) strongly suggests that the restitution was motivated not by genuine contrition, but by an expectation of obtaining a lighter punishment on the understanding that the game was up,” said the prosecutor.

Calling Allam a serial swindler, DPP Chan argued for him to be jailed for between 12 and 14 months.

In mitigation, Mr Balamurugan said Allam has around 40 years of experience in his field and is “well-known” for his services in Telengana, South India.

Noting that news of his arrest had spread to relatives and friends back home, the lawyer said Allam would continue to face scrutiny and embarrassment.