JOIN US LIVE - CHARLES SOBHRAJ
Wednesday 20th August 2025 - https://www.crimetv.live
Charles Sobhraj (b. 1944) was a French criminal of Indian and Vietnamese descent, infamous in the 1970s as a conman and serial killer. Operating along the "hippie trail" in Southeast Asia, he preyed on Western backpackers, luring them with charm, hospitality, or false business deals before drugging, robbing, and often murdering them. Many victims were found on beaches, leading to his tabloid nickname “The Bikini Killer.”
Sobhraj was arrested in India in 1976 after a failed mass poisoning and sentenced to prison, from which he briefly escaped in 1986. Released in 1997, he lived in Paris until returning to Nepal in 2003, where he was still wanted for earlier murders. He was convicted and sentenced to life in 2004. In 2022, at the age of 78, he was released on health grounds and deported to France.
Charming, calculating, and remorseless, Sobhraj became a symbol of the dark underbelly of the 1970s backpacking scene and remains one of the most notorious criminals of his era.