Sobhraj, along with a pregnant Compagnon, left France in 1970 for Asia to escape arrest. 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. Around the same time, he met and endeared himself to Felix d'Escogne, a wealthy young man and prison volunteer.Īfter being paroled, Sobhraj moved in with d'Escogne and spent his time moving between the high society of Paris and the criminal underworld. 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. There he felt neglected in favour of the couple's later children. Stateless at first, 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 was born in Saigon to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother. Sobhraj has been the subject of four biographies, three documentaries, an Indian film titled Main Aur Charles, and the 2021 eight-part BBC/Netflix drama series The Serpent. On 23 December, he was released and deported to France.ĭescribed as "handsome, charming and utterly without scruple", he used his looks and cunning to advance his criminal career and obtain celebrity status. 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 returned to Nepal in 2003, where he was arrested, tried, and given a life sentence. After his release, he retired, promoting his infamy in Paris. 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" due to the attire of several of his victims, as well as "the Splitting Killer" and "the Serpent", due to "his snake-like ability to avoid detection by authorities". Charles Gurumukh Sobhraj Hotchand Bhawnani (born 6 April 1944) is a French 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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