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Charles Sobhraj (born 6 April 1944), also known as the Bikini Killer, is a French thief, fraudster and serial killer. He preyed on Western tourists throughout Southeast Asia during the 1970s. He was nicknamed The Splitting Killer and The Serpent. Sobhraj allegedly committed at least a dozen murders. He was convicted and jailed in India from ...
- He Had A Turbulent Childhood
- He Was A Con Artist
- He Spent at Least Two Years on The Run
- He Began Scamming Tourists in South East Asia
- His First Known Murders Were Committed in 1975
- He and His accomplices Used Their Victims’ Passports to Travel
- He Was Apprehended Several Times Before Being Convicted
- He Was Finally Caught in New Delhi in 1976
- Prison Did Little to Stop Him
- He Was Caught in Nepal in 2003 and Sentenced For Murder Again
Born to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother, Sobhraj’s parents were unmarried and his father subsequently denied paternity. His mother married a lieutenant in the French Army and although the young Charles was taken in by his mother’s new husband, he felt sidelined and unwelcome in their growing family. The family moved back and forth between Fr...
Sobhraj began to make money through burglaries, scams and smuggling. He was extremely charismatic, sweet talking prison guards into giving him favours during any prison stints. On the outside, he made connections with some of the Parisian elites. It was through his dealings with high society that he met his future wife, Chantal Compagnon. She remai...
Between 1973 and 1975, Sobhraj and his half-brother André were on the run. They travelled through Eastern Europe and the Middle East on a series of stolen passports, committing crimes in Turkey and Greece. Eventually, André was caught by the Turkish police (Sobhraj escaped) and was sent to prison, serving an 18-year sentence for his actions.
After André’s arrest, Sobhraj went solo. He concocted a scam he used on tourists again and again, posing as a gem dealer or drug dealer and gaining their trust and loyalty. Typically he poisoned tourists to give them symptoms resembling food poisoning or dysentery and then offered them a place to stay. Recovering supposedly missing passports (which...
It’s thought that Sobhraj first began his killing spree after victims of his fraud threatened to expose him. By the end of the year, he had killed at least 7 young travellers: Teresa Knowlton, Vitali Hakim, Henk Bintanja, Cocky Hemker, Charmayne Carrou, Laurent Carrière and Connie Jo Bronzich, all aided by his girlfriend, Marie-Andree Leclerc, and ...
In order to escape Thailand unnoticed, Sobhraj and Leclerc left on the passports of their two most recent victims, arriving in Nepal, committing their final two murders of the year, and then leaving again before the bodies could be found and identified. Sobhraj continued to use the passports of his victims to travel, evading the authorities several...
Thai authorities had captured and questioned Sobhraj and his accomplices in early 1976, but with little hard evidence and a great deal of pressure not to bring bad publicity or damage the booming tourist industry, they were released without charge. A Dutch diplomat, Herman Knippenberg, later discovered evidence that would have snared Sobhraj, inclu...
By mid-1976, Sobhraj had started working with two women, Barbara Smith and Mary Ellen Eather. They offered their services as tour guides to a group of French students in New Delhi, who fell for the ruse. Sobhraj offered them poison disguised as anti-dysentery medicine. It worked faster than expected, with some of the students falling unconscious. O...
Sobhraj was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Unsurprisingly perhaps, he managed to smuggle precious gems in with him, ensuring he could bribe the guards and live comfortably in jail: reports say he had a television in his cell. He was also allowed to give interviews to journalists during his incarceration. Notably, he sold the rights to his life st...
After serving time in Tihar, New Delhi’s jail, Sobhraj was released in 1997 and returned to France to great fanfare from the press. He conducted numerous interviews and reportedly sold the rights to a movie about his life. In an inexplicably bold move, he returned to Nepal, where he was still wanted for murder, in 2003. He was apprehended after bei...
- Sarah Roller
Dec 23, 2022 · 23 Dec 2022. Charles Sobhraj, a French serial killer who police say is responsible for a series of murders in the 1970s and 1980s, has been released from prison in Nepal. His associates...
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Apr 24, 2021 · Accused of murdering dozens of Western tourists across Thailand, Nepal and India in the 1970s, Charles Sobhraj’s life story has spawned multiple books, a movie, and a new BBC miniseries on Netflix.
Wednesday 13 January 2021 09:49, UK. Killer Charles Sobhraj, pictured following a court hearing in India in 1995, is the subject of TV drama The Serpent. Why you can trust Sky News. Inspired by ...
Dec 22, 2022 · Charles Sobhraj, a serial killer blamed for killing at least 20 western backpackers by drugging their food and robbing them, is on Thursday expected to walk from prison in Nepal because of his old age. Sobhraj, 78, has been held in a high-security prison in the capital Kathmandu for the past 19 years for killing an American backpacker in 1975.
Dec 23, 2022 · 23 December 2022. Getty Images. Charles Sobhraj has been in jail in Nepal since 2003. A French serial killer known as The Serpent, convicted of several tourist murders in Asia in the 1970s, has...
