Charles Sobhraj –Part l

 If you were resident in Bangkok during the 1970/80's you may have met him.

He would often trawl the bars of Patpong and Soi Cowboy, hustling gem

stones. He spoke five languages fluently, was affable, charming and witty – a

good companion for anyone visiting the Kingdom for the first time and wishing

to meet interesting people.

His name is Charles Sobhraj, though he has used many others thanks to a large

collection of stolen passports. The man is not just a talented thief; out to lighten

the wallets of unsuspecting tourists. Charles Sobhraj is a psychopath who has

killed people without a trace of conscience. He is wanted for murder and fraud

in several countries in Asia and Europe . And he is without doubt one of the most

dangerous men currently walking the earth.

Sobhraj is also a man who lived a criminal life of adventure and intrigue that made

him a media celebrity. He amassed enough cash to bribe his captors who provided

him with amenities to make life in Tihar prison in Delhi , India more bearable.

For most of his incarceration he had access to computers, television, and kept a

refrigerator stocked with food and drink in his cell. He ran the prison library and

used drugs and exotic food to entertain prison staff and fellow inmates.

When he got out of prison, Sobhraj was able to sign a 15 million dollars deal for

his life story and charge the media upwards of (US) 5,000 dollars an interview

once he returned to Paris . He was given the code name ‘The Serpent' by Interpol

officers working on his case.

Charles Sobhraj was born in Saigon , South Vietnam in 1944 and named Gurhmuk

Sobhraj; the illegitimate son of an Indian tailor and Song, an attractive Vietnamese

woman. He grew up feeling his parents' indifference to his existence, and did

not much care for his stepfather, French army officer Lt. Alphonse Darreau, who

subsequently married his mother and adopted him. On being baptised a Catholic,

Sobhraj was given the Christian name ‘Charles' and attended school in the exotic

French port of Marseilles . He was a smart, charismatic youngster, but indifferent

to school subjects that did not interest him; though he quickly proved to be a

gifted linguist and dominated his younger half-brother Andre Darreau.

He stowed away on ships several times in an attempt to get back to Asia to find his

biological father, but was always discovered and shipped back to France . When

he was arrested for burglary in Paris in 1963 and sentenced to three years in gaol,

his family gave up on him. Sobhraj then vowed to make his family and all society

pay for abandoning him. “His claims that his life is a protest against the French

legal system or that his love for Vietnam and Asia motivated his criminal career

are absurd, but as tools of psychological manipulation they are very effective”,

says journalist Richard Neville.

Sobhraj also told Neville in an interview, “If I have ever killed or ordered killings,

then it was purely for business reasons; just a job, like a general in an army.”

Neville contends that extreme psychopaths like Charles Sobhraj are incapable

of feeling remorse. Like the USA 's famous criminal Charles Manson, convicted of

the Sharon Tate murders in 1969, Sobhraj seeks to control and manipulate others.

Psychologist Paul Babiak attributes three motivations to sociopaths like Manson

and Sobhraj: thrill-seeking, an almost insatiable desire to win, and the propensity

to injure others. These natural leaders gather a ‘family' of killers and criminals

around them, and consider themselves beyond the restrictions of normal society.

Sobhraj quickly adjusted to life in Poissy Prison near Paris . He was excellent at

karate and used it to defend himself against criminal predators. The jail had been

built in the 16th century as a convent and converted into a prison by the agnostics

of the French Revolution. Individual cells were so small that they were used only

for sleeping. During the day the prisoners were lumped together in pens sorted

into groups based on their ferocity, sanity and nationality.

Whilst serving his sentence, Charles befriended a wealthy prison visitor named

Felix d'Escogne who tried to reconcile Sobhraj with his mother and stepfather.

After he was paroled, Charles moved in with D'Escogne and cautiously resumed

his criminal lifestyle whilst interacting with some of the wealthiest families in Paris

through his new friend. But Sobhraj's self-destructive behaviour sent him back to

jail when he stole a car after losing thousands of borrowed francs in a frenzied

bout of gambling with his new fiancée Chantal Dubois. Charles tried to outrun

the police but lost control on a rain-soaked curve and crashed the car. He was

sent back to Poissy for eight months for evading police in a stolen vehicle. Felix

D'Escogne wrote a letter to the judge, advising that mandatory psychological

counseling be part of Sobhraj's sentence. “He exploits 100 percent the weaknesses

of those around him”, he wrote. “Charles has almost no conscience but is capable

of great charm when it suits him. He is also impulsive and aggressive when

confronted.” It seems that Felix knew his friend pretty well.

Charles was unable to see any faults in himself, and blamed the world for his

run-ins with the law. He did his time quietly, but in a series of letters to Felix, he

denied responsibility for his actions. By the time he had completed his sentence,

Sobhraj had amassed a small fortune through a series of scams and this money

made Chantal's parents a little more amenable to their daughter marrying a man

they referred to as a ‘Vietnamese half-breed'.

Shortly afterwards, Chantal fell pregnant and Charles decided to head for the

Orient. He was passing bad cheques all over France , and it was only a matter

of time before police realised that the common link to a rash of burglaries in

wealthy homes was that Monsieur Sobhraj had recently been a guest on the

premises. Loading his possessions in a stolen car, Charles and his wife left France .

The couple worked their way across Eastern Europe passing worthless cheques,

robbing people and leaving a trail of crimes and victims in their wake. By the

time they reached Istanbul , police in Paris had a warrant for his arrest. In Bombay ,

Chantal gave birth to a baby girl.

Charles and Chantal integrated quickly into the expatriate French community

in India , where they were accepted into the social scene. During much of 1970,

Sobhraj operated a stolen car brokerage operation, obtaining American and

European cars for homesick Frenchmen and wealthy Indians with a passion for

Western cars. Charles would either steal the autos or fence stolen cars in Pakistan

or Iran and then drive them over the border to India , greasing the palms of corrupt

Indian border guards to overlook the import paperwork. His was doing well until

his compulsive gambling led to another reversal.

Charles lost a fortune at a Macao casino and had to pawn Chantal's jewellery to

pay off some of the debt. He literally put his life at risk from casino collectors who

are pretty ruthless when owed cash. His plan to rob a jewellery store was doomed

from the start. Charles and his crew broke into a hotel room above the shop in the

plush Hotel Ashoka in Delhi and tried to drill through the floor and drop into the

store at nightfall. But after three days of drilling they made scant progress. Charles

then lured the store owner up to the room and took the keys from him at gunpoint.

After emptying the cases into a holdall, Charles drove to Delhi airport, but he was

forced to abandon his loot at customs when the store owner escaped his bonds

and notified Indian police, who sealed off the airport. Sobhraj left $10,000 in cash

and over $100,000 in jewels in a safety deposit box. Bluffing his way out of the

police cordon, he returned to Bombay where he resumed his auto theft business.

But his luck ran out here, also, as he was recognised by an eyewitness and arrested

for the jewellery heist in Delhi . He was interred awaiting trial in Tihar prison

where he staged the first of his dramatic escapes.

He faked a bleeding ulcer and was transferred to a local hospital where he was

diagnosed as having appendicitis. Recovering from needless surgery, Charles got

Chantal to aid his escape by drugging the guard by his hospital room. They then

fled to Afghanistan , using stolen passports.

In Kabul Charles supported his wife and child by running cons and robbing

hippies who had come east following the hashish trial from Europe . But when he

tried to leave the country he was arrested at Kabul 's airport for failing to pay two

months rent on his hotel room. Once again he faked an ulcer whilst in prison, and

then escaped from hospital and flew to Iran . For the next year Sobhraj traveled

extensively in Asia and Europe , using passports that he either bought or stole, and

supporting himself by theft. He was able to change identity quickly depending

on the passport he was using. During 1972-1973 he travelled to Karachi , Pakistan ,

Italy , Teheran , Afghanistan , Yugoslavia , Bulgaria and as far north as Denmark .

But his marriage effectively ended in Kabul . His loyal wife, now with a dossier of

her own on the massive Interpol database, had finally had enough of her dishonest

husband and ran away to Paris with her daughter. She was welcomed by her family

and prayed that she would never see Charles again.

Sobhraj was joined in Istanbul by his younger brother Andre Darreau, who had

always been his willing slave. They pulled a couple of minor heists in Turkey , and

then fled to Greece . After robbing a few tourists in Athens they were arrested

attempting to break into a jewellery store. Charles convinced Andre that they

should switch identities: Charles was a wanted man, and if he pretended to be

Andre (whose crimes were minor in the eyes of Greek justice) he could walk out

of prison in a few weeks. Later, when he was safely across the border, Andre could

tell the Greeks that he was real Andre Darreau, and that they had released the

wrong man. They would then set him free.

The plan almost worked. But when the Greek justice system decided to give

both men long prison terms, Charles fell back to plan ‘B'. Once again feigning

illness, he managed to escape from a police van taking him to hospital and then

disappeared. After a few days, Andre went to the prison warden and revealed that

they had let Charles Sobhraj, not Andre Darreau, escape justice. Sadly for him,

the angry Greeks decided to turn Andre over to Turkish justice. After being flown

back to Istanbul and put on trial, Andre was found guilty of fraud and theft and

sentenced to 18 years at hard labour.

With his younger brother breaking rocks in a Turkish chain gang, Charles

Sobhraj headed eastward. He flitted around India , Kashmir , Iran and the Near

East operating small-time scams, and also managed to retrieve the cash and

jewellery he had stashed at Delhi airport. His typical MO (modus operandi) was

to befriend a French or English-speaking tourist couple, and impress them as a

mysterious, wealthy dealmaker and then either use them as jewel couriers or steal

their cash, passports and travel tickets. He had an extensive pharmacy of knockout

drugs for this purpose.

Whilst in Bangkok he met Marie LeClerc, a French-speaking Canadian who soon

became his lover and closest confidante and accomplice. Marie was so besotted

with Charles that she even tolerated his other lovers, notably a beautiful Thai

woman named May.

Charles (now using the name ‘Alain Gautier') and Marie met up with an Australian

professor and his wife vacationing in Thailand . Acting as newly-weds, they soon

won over the gullible couple as they travelled to the exotic island of Koh Samui

on the western side of the Gulf of Thailand . After all four had checked into a plush

hotel, Charles and Marie served the Aussies coconut milk laced with a powerful

sedative. As their victims fell into a deeply drugged sleep, Charles ransacked their

hotel room, taking several thousand dollars in cash and travellers' cheques as well

as their passports, wedding rings and plane tickets. With the knocked-out Aussies

still asleep in their room, Charles and Marie checked out next day and returned

to Bangkok .

Just like Charlie Manson at the Spahn Ranch in California during the 1960's,

Sobhraj now began to collect a criminal ‘family' around him. One was a

young French boy named Dominique whom he carefully nursed back

to health after first poisoning him. This cynical manipulation made

Dominique almost totally dependant on him. Two others were Yannick and

Jacques, former police officers in the French colonies. Whilst they were

all out enjoying Bangkok 's nightlife with Marie and May, Charles slipped

away, broke into their rented room and stole their passports and money. Do

not worry, he assured the frantic young men, they could stay with him

while new passports were procured in Bangkok . Any remuneration

would be worked out later. The grateful men agreed to work for

Charles in return for board and lodging at his large rented house.

The final addition to Charles' circle was a mysterious young Indian

named Ajay Chowdhury. As cold and adept as his boss, Ajay

quickly became his trusted lieutenant and accompanied Charles

everywhere. Then after assembling his coterie, Charles Sobhraj

took the inevitable step beyond masterminding scams and thefts.

He began to kill people.

End of part 1. Part 2 of ‘The Serpent' next month

IF YOU need a check on my True Crime series of stories, published in the Hua Hin Observer, here is a complete list to date:
April 2002 -The Green Bicycle case, 1921. May 2002 - The Craig/Bentley Case, 1952. June 2002 - The A6 Murder Case, 1961. July 2002 - Murder of the Earl of Errol, 1941. August 2002 - The O J Simpson murder trial, 1995. September 2002 - The Aileen Wuornos case, 1989. October 2002 - The Ronald Opus case, 1993. November 2002 - Madame X, 1929. December 2002 - The Spree Killer, 1984. January 2003 - Shootout at Smiths' Club, 1966. February 2003 - The Christine Dryland case, 1991. March 2003 - Poisoned Pie in Essex, 1982. April 2003 - The Heydrich assassination, 1943. May 2003 - The Diana Davidson Murder case, 1969. June 2003 - The death of Alkibiades, 404 BC. July 2003 - The headsman of Colmar, 1780. August 2003 - The Ruth Ellis case, 1955. September 2003 - The Mel Jones Murder case, 1975. October 2003 - The Bluebeard of the bath, 1915. November 2003 - Murder in a combat zone, 1966. December 2003 - The Barn Restaurant murder case, 1972. January 2004 - The assassination of JFK, 1963. February 2004 - Judge Falcone and the Mafia, 1992. March 2004 - Gilles de Rais/Bluebeard, 1404-1440. April 2004 - The hand in the sand case, 1885. May 2004 - The body in the bag, 1979

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