![]() In 1997, after serving a 20-year sentence, Sobhraj’s warrant for his extradition to Thailand ran out and he headed for France, where he had citizenship. A jailed Sobhraj drugged a guard and disappeared to Paris, leaving his young wife in a cramped and dirty cell in Kabul. Starring Tahar Rahim, Billy Howle, and Jenna Coleman, Netflix's The Serpent chronicles the deadly murder spree of French gem dealer Charles Sobhraj. A t the beginning of The Serpent, the new BBC drama series based on the exploits of a real-life serial killer, a title page declares: In 1997 an American TV crew tracked Charles Sobhraj down to. Tahar Rahim portrays convicted French serial killer, robber and fraudster, Charles Sobhraj (played by Tahar Rahim) in The Serpent. In India, after holding a flamenco dancer hostage while robbing a Delhi hotel jewellery store, he faked appendicitis and escaped after surgery.Īnd in Afghanistan, he and his first wife, Chantal Compagnon, were arrested for running out on a hotel bill and stealing a car. In Greece, he convinced his “adoring” younger brother to swap identities and serve his 18-year sentence after they had robbed a businessman, who later recognised Sobhraj on a plane. He was also a man who could cooly assume the identities of others - usually one of his victims - to evade capture. ![]() RELATED: How star finally found ‘Bikini Killer’īefore he was imprisoned in New Delhi in 1976 for drugging a group of French engineering students, Sobhraj escaped incarceration three times. Ap10 AM PT Netflix’s true crime drama The Serpent, premiering Friday, may seem unbelievable but the creators actually had to temper the bizarre real-life history of con man and. He became known as the “Bikini Killer” after the swimsuit one of his victims was wearing when she was discovered. Although Chantal Compagnon had moved to the United States of America with Usha Sobhraj to ensure that her daughter would never get into her father’s clutches again, she herself went back to Charles in 1997, when he was residing in Paris, France as a free man. ![]() In more than one case, investigators found that he’d even set the body on fire, not even waiting until the victim was dead before he or she was set alight.Īfterwards, Sobhraj and his accomplices - his French-Canadian girlfriend Maree-Andrée Leclerc and Indian henchman Ajay Chowdhury - would steal their belongings and identities, often travelling the world on the victims’ passports and money so it wasn’t always apparent that they were missing. His isn’t a name that many would recognise - yet the suave Vietnamese-Indian Frenchman was once one of Asia’s most wanted criminals, the charismatic con artist and so-called “Bikini Killer” who lured at least a dozen young backpackers to their deaths in the 1970s.įinely tuned to what budget travellers wanted, Sobhraj would befriend the young tourists who were looking to get lost along southeast Asia’s “Hippie Trail” - advising them on where to eat and how to buy gemstones - before making sure some of them would never be found, first by drugging their drinks, and then stabbing or choking them. Handsome, charming, and fluent in several languages, Charles Sobhraj was “like some bizarre real-life combination of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter”. ![]()
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