Charles Sobhraj was born on Hotchand Bhawnani Gurmukh Sobhraj, 6 April 1944 and is a serial killer, fraudster, and thief who preyed on Western tourists travelling on the hippie trail of South Asia during the 1970s.
64 Facts About Charles Sobhraj
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Charles Sobhraj was known as the Bikini Killer because of the attire of several of his victims, as well as the Splitting Killer and the Serpent for "his snake-like ability to avoid detection by authorities".
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Charles Sobhraj was convicted and jailed in India from 1976 to 1997.
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Charles Sobhraj went to Nepal in 2003, where he was arrested, tried, and given a life sentence.
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Hotchand Bhawnani Gurmukh Charles Sobhraj was born on 6 April 1944 in Saigon, within the Indochinese Union, to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother.
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Charles Sobhraj's birthplace being a French colonial territory made him eligible for French citizenship.
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Charles Sobhraj's parents were never married and his father denied paternity.
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Charles Sobhraj was taken in by his mother's new husband, a French Army lieutenant stationed in French Indochina.
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Charles Sobhraj's name was entered as Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj in church records in 1959.
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Charles Sobhraj continued to move back and forth between Southeast Asia and France with the family.
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Charles Sobhraj began accumulating riches through a series of burglaries and scams.
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Charles Sobhraj proposed marriage to Compagnon, but was arrested later the same day for attempting to evade police while driving a stolen vehicle.
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Charles Sobhraj was sentenced to eight months in prison, yet Chantal remained supportive throughout the entirety of his sentence.
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In 1973, Charles Sobhraj was arrested and imprisoned after an unsuccessful armed robbery attempt on a jewellers at The Ashok, in New Delhi.
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Charles Sobhraj was able to escape, with Compagnon's help, by faking illness, but was recaptured shortly thereafter.
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Charles Sobhraj borrowed money for bail from his father, and soon afterwards fled to Kabul.
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Charles Sobhraj escaped in the same way he had in India, feigning illness and drugging the hospital guard.
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Compagnon, though still loyal to Charles Sobhraj, wished to leave their criminal past and returned to France, vowing never to see him again.
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Charles Sobhraj spent the next two years on the run, using as many as 10 stolen passports.
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Charles Sobhraj passed through various countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
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Charles Sobhraj was joined by his younger half-brother, Andre, in Istanbul.
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In India, Charles Sobhraj met Marie-Andree Leclerc from Levis, Quebec, a tourist looking for adventure.
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Charles Sobhraj gathered followers by gaining their loyalty; a typical scam was to help his target out of difficult situations.
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In one case, he helped two former French policemen, Yannick and Jacques, recover missing passports that Charles Sobhraj himself had actually stolen.
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Charles Sobhraj was joined by a young Indian man, Ajay Chowdhury, a fellow criminal who became Sobhraj's second-in-command.
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Charles Sobhraj claimed that most of his murders were accidental drug overdoses of temazepam and heroin, but investigators state that the victims had threatened to expose Charles Sobhraj, which was his motive for murder.
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They, like many others, were poisoned by Charles Sobhraj, who nursed them back to health in order to gain their obedience.
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Charles Sobhraj used the passport to travel with Leclerc and Chowdhury; first to Singapore, then to India, and, in March 1976, returning to Bangkok, despite knowing that the authorities there sought him.
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Charles Sobhraj was eventually given police permission to search Sobhraj's apartment a full month after the suspect had left the country.
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In May 1976, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for Charles Sobhraj, which charged him with four murders in Thailand.
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Back in Asia, Charles Sobhraj started forming a new criminal group, starting with two Western women, Barbara Smith and Mary Ellen Eather, in Bombay.
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Charles Sobhraj's next victim was a Frenchman, Jean-Luc Solomon, who was poisoned during a robbery.
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In July 1976 in New Delhi, Charles Sobhraj, joined by his three-woman criminal clan, tricked a tour group of French post-graduate students into accepting them as tour guides.
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Charles Sobhraj drugged them by giving them poisoned pills, which he told them were anti-dysentery medicine.
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Three of the students, realising what Charles Sobhraj had done, overpowered him and contacted the police, leading to his capture.
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Charles Sobhraj was charged with the murder of Solomon and all four were sent to Tihar Jail in New Delhi.
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Charles Sobhraj, who had entered with precious gems concealed in his body and was experienced in bribing captors, was living comfortably in jail.
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Charles Sobhraj turned his trial into a spectacle, hiring and firing lawyers at will, bringing in his recently paroled brother Andre to assist, and eventually going on a hunger strike.
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Charles Sobhraj was still claiming her innocence and was reportedly still loyal to Sobhraj when she died at her home in April 1984.
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Charles Sobhraj led a life of luxury inside the prison, with television and gourmet food, having befriended both guards and prisoners.
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Charles Sobhraj gave interviews to Western authors and journalists, such as Oz magazine's Richard Neville in 1977 and Alan Dawson in 1984.
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Clarke has said that Charles Sobhraj sold the rights to his life story to a Bangkok businessman, who then sold them to Random House.
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On 17 February 1997,52-year-old Charles Sobhraj was released with most warrants, evidence, and even witnesses against him long lost.
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Charles Sobhraj charged large sums of money for interviews and photographs.
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In 2003, Charles Sobhraj returned to Nepal, one of the few countries where he could still be arrested and where he was still eagerly sought by authorities.
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Charles Sobhraj's return is thought to have been the result of his yearning for attention and overconfidence in his own intellect.
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On 1 September 2003, Charles Sobhraj was spotted by a journalist for The Himalayan Times in a casino in Kathmandu.
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The Nepalese police saw the report, raided the casino and arrested an unaware Charles Sobhraj, who was still gambling there.
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On 20 August 2004, Charles Sobhraj was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Kathmandu district court for the 1975 murder of Connie Jo Bronzich.
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Charles Sobhraj appealed against the conviction, claiming he had been sentenced without trial.
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Charles Sobhraj's lawyer announced that Chantal Compagnon, Sobhraj's wife in France, was filing a case before the European Court of Human Rights against the French government for refusing to provide him with any assistance.
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In late 2007, Charles Sobhraj's lawyer appealed to then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy for intervention with Nepal.
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In 2008, Charles Sobhraj announced his engagement to a Nepali woman, Nihita Biswas, who later participated in the reality show Bigg Boss.
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On 7 July 2008, issuing a press release through his fiancee Biswas, Charles Sobhraj claimed he was never convicted of murder by any court, and asked the media not to refer to him as a serial killer.
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Charles Sobhraj had appealed against the Kathmandu district court's verdict in 2006, calling it unfair.
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The seizure of all Charles Sobhraj's properties was ordered by the court.
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Charles Sobhraj's supposed wife Biswas and mother-in-law Shakuntala Thapa, a lawyer, expressed dissatisfaction with the verdict, with Thapa claiming that Charles Sobhraj had been denied justice and that the "judiciary is corrupt".
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On 18 September 2014, Charles Sobhraj was convicted in the Bhaktapur district court of the 1975 murder of Canadian tourist Laurent Carriere, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
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In 2018, Charles Sobhraj was in critical condition and had received several open-heart surgeries and was scheduled for more.
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Charles Sobhraj has been ordered to leave the country within 15 days.
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Charles Sobhraj was deported to France and will not be able to return to Nepal for at least 10 years.
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Charles Sobhraj told the media that his gaze and his eyes were mesmerizing and that his French charm had done everything.
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The 2015 Hindi film Main Aur Charles, directed by Prawaal Raman and Cyznoure Network, is reportedly based on Charles Sobhraj's escape from Tihar Jail in New Delhi.
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An eight-part BBC-commissioned miniseries called The Serpent was broadcast in the UK in January 2021, starring Tahar Rahim as Charles Sobhraj, before being streamed on Netflix in April 2021.