![]() ![]() Sobhraj was able to escape, with Compagnon's help, by faking illness, but was recaptured shortly thereafter. In 1973, Sobhraj was arrested and imprisoned after an unsuccessful armed robbery attempt on a jewellers at The Ashok, in New Delhi. Sobhraj's growing profits went towards his budding gambling addiction. In the meantime, Sobhraj resumed his criminal life, running a car theft and smuggling operation. ![]() Chantal gave birth to a baby girl, Usha, in the city. After travelling through Eastern Europe with fake documents, robbing tourists whom they befriended along the way, Sobhraj arrived in Bombay ( Mumbai) later the same year. Sobhraj, along with a pregnant Compagnon, left France in 1970 for Asia to escape arrest. īy 1970, he had become a French citizen through his mother, as she was a natural-born citizen of Vietnam, a former French colony. Sobhraj and Compagnon were married upon his release. He was sentenced to eight months in prison, yet Chantal remained supportive throughout the entirety of his sentence. Sobhraj proposed marriage to Compagnon, but was arrested later the same day for attempting to evade police while driving a stolen vehicle. During this time, Sobhraj met and began a romantic relationship with Chantal Compagnon, a young Parisian woman from a conservative family. He began accumulating riches through a series of burglaries and scams. Īfter being paroled, Sobhraj moved in with d'Escogne and spent his time moving between the high society of Paris and the criminal underworld. Around the same time, he met and endeared himself to Felix d'Escogne, a wealthy young man and prison volunteer. While imprisoned, Sobhraj manipulated prison officials into granting him special favours, such as being allowed to keep books in his cell. Sobhraj continued to move back and forth between Southeast Asia and France with the family.Īs a teenager, he began to commit petty crimes he received his first custodial sentence for burglary in 1963, serving his sentence at Poissy prison near Paris. In his new family, he felt neglected in favour of the couple's later children. His name was entered as Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj in church records in 1959. Sobhraj was taken in by his mother's new husband, a French Army lieutenant stationed in French Indochina. His parents were never married and his father denied paternity. Sobhraj's birthplace being a French colonial territory made him eligible for French citizenship. ![]() Hotchand Bhawnani Gurmukh Sobhraj was born on 6 April 1944 in Saigon, within the Indochinese Union, to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother. Sobhraj has been the subject of four biographies, three documentaries, a Bollywood film titled Main Aur Charles, and the 2021 eight-part BBC/ Netflix drama series The Serpent. ĭescribed as "handsome, charming and utterly without scruple", he used his looks and cunning to advance his criminal career and obtain celebrity status he is known to have enjoyed his infamy. On 23 December, he was released and deported to France. On 21 December 2022, the Supreme Court of Nepal ordered his release from prison because of his old age, after he had served 19 years of his prison term. Sobhraj went to Nepal in 2003, where he was arrested, tried, and given a life sentence. He was convicted and jailed in India from 1976 to 1997. It is thought that Sobhraj murdered at least 20 tourists in South and Southeast Asia, including 14 in Thailand. He 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". Charles Sobhraj (born Hotchand Bhawnani Gurmukh Sobhraj, 6 April 1944) is a serial killer, fraudster, and thief who preyed on Western tourists travelling on the hippie trail of South Asia during the 1970s. ![]()
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