A court in South Korea has sentenced a shaman to four years in prison after he defrauded a person by pretending that they spoke to the victim’s deceased mother, who told him the winning lottery numbers.

Jang, the 66-year-old defendant, requested a large sum of money to disclose the final number of the country’s weekly lottery in April 2019, saying: “I need to raise my prayers and pay for them.”

The victim handed over ?276m (US$206,721) in cash and the shaman proceeded to spend the majority of the funds paying for living expenses and other debts. He also spent ?50m (US$37,450) on the victim’s credit card at a company that his father runs.

shaman denies asking for money to reveal the lottery numbers

The shaman denies asking for money to reveal the lottery numbers, claiming that this was a legit payment to pray for the family of the victim. The Seoul Western District Court Criminal Chamber 10 disagreed and said that Jang intentionally misled the victim and there is no objective data to back up the defendant’s claims.

This isn’t the only time that the shaman has gotten into hot water by trying to deceive someone. He defrauded ?319m (US$238,928) from another victim in 2021 after promising to pay them back with interest.