![]() He would select his victims, create a troublesome situation for them and then pose as the knight in shining armour who would solve the problem. To gather more members into his clan, Sobhraj formed a new con. She fell for his charm and was content to ignore both his dalliances with other women and his criminal activity. His first devotee was Marie-Andreé Leclerc from Quebec, Canada. He had also hatched a new plan and that was to create a kind of criminal family, with him at the helm. In 1975, Sobhraj moved to Thailand, becoming a drug dealer to finance his lifestyle. The brothers were arrested and imprisoned in Athens but Sobhraj managed to escape once more, leaving André to serve his sentence. His younger brother, André, joined him in Istanbul and the two of them went on a crime spree in Greece and Turkey. For the next two years Sobhraj was on the run from authorities and travelled around Eastern Europe and the Middle East, always using stolen passports. Weary of the constant disruption to their lives that Sobhraj’s criminal activity brought, Chantal returned to France with her daughter, declaring that she never wanted to see Sobhraj again. This time he left his family behind and fled to Iran. Arrested again, Sobhraj escaped once more pretending illness and drugging the hospital guard. ![]() They settled in Kabul, where they immediately began robbing tourists following the ‘hippie trail’ between Europe and Eastern Asia. He managed to borrow money for bail and the couple fled India for Afghanistan. ![]() Sobhraj and Chantal went on the run but Sobhraj was soon caught and put back in prison. After a fortnight in prison, Sobhraj faked appendicitis and managed to escape during a blackout, as it was the time of the India-Bangladesh war. At the time of Sobhraj’s arrest, police confiscated a number of revolvers, rifles and other weapons from him. In 1973, Sobhraj committed an armed robbery at a jewellery shop in Hotel Ashoka, Delhi but was arrested and sent to prison. ![]() He would drug them, sometimes to death, and steal their belongings. Around this time, he is alleged to have also been running a curio shop in Bangkok, in order to lure his favourite victims, foreign tourists. Sobhraj moved on to Pakistan, where in Rawalpindi he stole a car by drugging the driver, who died from poisoning. It was here that Sobhraj made contacts for illegal gun smuggling, moving the weapons from Afghanistan by land route to sell in India. In December 1971, the couple fled to Kabul, Afghanistan, where they stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel for quite a while, apparently departing without paying the bill. Some of Britain's most notorious killers come in pairs Instead of using the profits for something positive for his family, he ploughed them into his newfound hobby of gambling. However, Sobhraj had turned to crime once more and was running a car theft and smuggling enterprise. On the surface they made a good impression, endearing themselves to the Indian ex-pat community. Here they settled, in an attempt to provide a stable environment for their child. In 1970, the couple arrived in Bombay, India, where Chantal gave birth to their daughter. They would befriend fellow travellers and then rob them of their valuables, beating a hasty retreat to the next victim. They decided to leave France for Asia and, using false travel documents, began travelling through Eastern Europe. She soon fell pregnant but the couple began to worry about the fact that the French authorities had Sobhraj in their sights and the threat of arrest was ever-present. Chantal waited for him and upon his release, they married. On the night that Sobhraj proposed to Chantal, he was arrested for evading police in a stolen car and sent back to Poissy prison for a further eight months, charged with car theft. It was during this time that Sobhraj met a young lady, Chantal, from a conservative Parisian family, and they fell in love. Women would fall for him, as he could be particularly charming. He simultaneously lived the high society life in Paris, whilst also dabbling in the criminal underworld with various scams and burglaries. In 1969, when Sobhraj was paroled, he moved in with Felix d’Escogne, a man he had met whilst in jail. In this harsh prison, Sobhraj began to hone his skills of manipulation in order to endear himself to prison officials to gain favours, such as keeping books in his cell. He was sentenced to three years at Poissy prison near Paris. In 1960, at age 16, Sobhraj began stealing and received his first jail sentence for burglary in 1963. ![]()
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