The Bikini Killer — Criminal Mastermind of the 20th Century

Charles Sobhraj, the serial killer with celebrity status and an upcoming Netflix documentary

I remember about 20 yrs ago when I was 13 and was participating in a high school debate, speaking for the motion about the case for capital punishment.

My father had written my speech and it had a mention of Charles Sobhraj, a criminal mastermind, my dad had said, like no other.

Since then, I have been fascinated with the man just like the rest of the world that has had a chance to read or learn about him. He has enjoyed a celebrity status for most of his life as one of the most notorious criminals ever, still alive, and hoping to be released from jail, at the age of 76.

Charles Sobhraj is known by a variety of names, most famously, the Bikini Killer which has to do with the attire of the victims he chose to murder. He is also known as the Splitting Killer, and The Serpent, due to his skills in deception.

Early years and the making of the criminal

Sobhraj was born in 1944 in Vietnam, to a Vietnamese mother and an Indian businessman father, who lived in Saigon. His parents got divorced, and Sobhraj later faced neglect at the hands of his mother’s new boyfriend, a French Army lieutenant stationed in Indochina, in favor of the couple’s later children.

As a result, he spent most of his time between Southeast Asia and France. So while Sobhraj was Vietnamese-Indian by birth, he was a French national by adoption. His first stint with crime began with some petty teenage crimes and he faced his first jail sentence as a 19-yr old for a burglary in 1963 in France.

After getting released on parole from jail, Charles slowly built his wealth and notorious image in the French underworld for burglaries and scams. Charles was a man of striking appearance and unparalleled charm, which he used to attract and trap his victims.

His first known passionate relationship was with a young Parisian woman, Chantal Compagnon. The day he proposed marriage to Chantal, is the same day that he was arrested by the French police for attempting to evade police in a stolen vehicle. After spending eight months in prison, the couple got married on his release.

They fled France in 1970, with a pregnant Chantal, and traveled through Europe to Asia and ended up in Mumbai where Charles continues his ways of crime. He continued to build his wealth via smuggling and used the proceeds for his gambling habits.

The uncertain number of murders — 12–24

Sobhraj’s murders, an unknown number largely believed to be between 12–24, mostly occurred in the period of the 1970s and 1980s, when he preyed on mostly western tourists along the Southeast Asia Hippie Trail.

According to GQ magazine, “In those days visitors entered and left countries like Thailand, Hong Kong and Nepal with minimum official processing. Young idealists, trusting backpackers and hash-smoking stoners were looking to get lost, and Sobhraj made sure some of them were never found.”

He was a charismatic figure, fluent in several languages, and finely tuned to what budget travellers wanted. He would befriend them, advise them on where to eat and how to buy gemstones, sometimes put them up at the Bangkok apartment he shared with his French-Canadian girlfriend, and then kill them.

His first known murder is believed to have happened in 1975. Charles had recruited a 2nd-in-command for his crimes, an Indian man named Ajay Chowdhary. The victims of Sobhraj were mostly believed to be recruited by the duo to be a part of their crimes but later killed. According to a National Geographic documentary, Charles Sobhraj — The Serpent, the first victim was a young woman from Seattle. Teresa Knowlton was found drowned in a tidal pool in the Gulf of Thailand, wearing a flowered bikini.

This is where he got his infamous name “The Bikini Killer”.

Time behind bars, yet a celebrity status

Sobhraj was jailed in the most famous Indian jail, the Tihar jail between 1976 and 1997 for about 20 yrs. Yet, according to most records, and his documentary, he led a life of luxury within the prison, by using his amassed wealth to bribe prison officials.

His luxurious lifestyle reportedly included television and gourmet food, having befriended both guards and prisoners. He gave interviews to Western authors and journalists, such as Oz magazine’s Richard Neville in the late 1970s, and Alan Dawson in 1984. He freely talked about his murders, while never actually admitting to them, and pretended that his actions were in retaliation against “Western imperialism” in Asia.

The Indiatimes article on Sobhraj also talks about how he continued his charm and appeal to women intact during his times in jail.

During his stay in Tihar, he is said to have been engaged to two women and have sexual relations with his lawyer, Sneha Senger. But he was plotting his escape all this while, which he managed a little later. In a calculated move though, he was caught a month after his ‘escape’ and was jailed till 1997. This meant that the statute of limitations on his punishments in Thailand, that of 20 years, ran out.

In February of 1997, he was released from Tihar jail, and Indian authorities were forced to let him return to France with little in terms of evidence to hold him back.

Post-Release million-dollar deals

The life of Sobhraj was so extraordinary, that while living in France after his release, he is said to have received $15 mn for his film and book rights by a French actor-producer.

His life of crime however caught up with him several years later when he was arrested in a Kathmandu, Nepal casino in 2003 for allegedly traveling on a false passport and for murders of a Canadian man and an American woman which he allegedly carried out 28 years ago.

Current status and what lies ahead — Netflix Series “The Serpent”

At the age of 64, while jailed in Nepal, Sobhraj managed to charm yet another girl, this time 44 yrs his junior.

Sobhraj met Nihita Biswas, when she was introduced to him in prison, as an interpreter for his French lawyer. According to the Times of India article, Sobhraj says “it was love at first sight with Nihita”.

Nihita herself gained a mini-celebrity status given her linkages to Sobhraj. She participated in the Indian version of the reality show Big Brother, called Big Boss.

The show’s fandom page has Nihita’s bio that says,

Though not confirmed, it was reported by the media that the marriage of Nihita Biswas to Charles Sobhraj took place on October 9, 2008, on the sacred Nepalese occasion of the Bada Dashami. However, the wedding took place inside the prison premises itself and naturally was not much publicised during to security reasons.

In 2017, with changed Nepalese laws, that dictated for any criminals over the age of 70, the jail term would cut into half, Sobhraj got another hope of release. Sobhraj’s mother-in-law, Nihita’s mother, Shakuntala Thapa is a Nepalese lawyer herself.

In 2018, Sobhraj was in critical condition and had been operated on multiple times. He has received several open-heart surgeries and is scheduled for more.

BBC in collaboration with Netflix has produced an eight-part series on the life of the celebrated criminal, titled “The Serpent”. Sobhraj will be played by the internationally renowned Tahar Rahim, who was cast in The Looming Tower, a drama about the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center, as Ali Soufan, a Muslim Lebanese-American FBI agent.

Hopefully, we will all get to see a gripping account of Sobhraj’s life when the show is released by Netflix, at some point this year.