15. A Charismatic Conman Who Murdered Dozens on the Hippie Trail
Charles Sobhraj spent much of his childhood moving between Indochina and France. A delinquent from early on, he graduated from petty crimes to burglary, which got him sent to jail at age 18. A charismatic and manipulative sociopath, Sobhraj met and endeared himself to a rich prison volunteer, who introduced him to high society after his release. He used that to run scams and scout the homes of his new upper class circle so he could burglarize them.
He had to flee France in 1970 one step ahead of the law, and after a series of crimes that stretched from Eastern Europe to India, he ended up in Afghanistan. There, the charismatic Sobhraj preyed on tourists along the “Hippie Trail” – a route between Europe and South Asia, that was popular with Beatniks and Hippies from the 1950s to 1970s.
Sobhraj engaged in a variety of criminal schemes, including one with his brother that backfired, and left his sibling doing 18 years in a Turkish prison. Sobhraj then took a dark turn, graduated from scams and thefts to murder, and began piling up corpses all along the Hippie Trail. It is estimated that he murdered at least 20 Western tourists, and the actual count might be significantly higher.
He was finally caught in 1976, after he tried drugging some tourists in India, but screwed up the dosage. His intended victims remained conscious enough to realize what Sobhraj had tried to do, and overpowered him until police arrived. He was convicted of numerous offenses and imprisoned, but escaped in 1986 after drugging his prison guards, He stayed on the lam for a month before he was recaptured.
While behind bars, Sobhraj used his cunning and charisma to keep himself in the public eye and maintain his celebrity status. He made good money charging for interviews, and made even better money selling his Indian movie rights. Released in 1997, he returned to Paris, where he enjoyed a celebrity lifestyle, and sold his international movie rights for U$15 million. Karma caught up with him, however, when he unwisely travelled to Nepal in 2003. Nepalese authorities arrested him for a 1975 double murder, tried, convicted, and sentenced him to life. He is still (2018) locked up in Nepal.