13. The Hippie Trail Serial Killer
French fraudster, thief, and serial killer Charles Sobhraj spent much of his childhood moving between Indochina and France. A delinquent from early on, Sobhraj ended up in jail at age 18. A charismatic and manipulative sociopath, he met and befriended a rich prison volunteer, who introduced him to high society after his release. Sobhraj used that intro to run scams and scout the homes of his new upper-class acquaintances so he could burglarize them.
In 1970, Sobhraj fled France, one step ahead of the law. After a crime spree 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 the 1970s.