Crimehub: A True Crime Podcast · Crimehub Studios

Slipping Justice | The Story of “The Serpent” Charles Sobhraj

·1 hr 3 min·5 clips

The story opens in a Delhi hotel bar, where Charles Sabraj watches a tour group of engineering students from southern France for two days. He is one of the few people in Delhi who speaks French, and that gives him an easy opening. He starts with the group leaders, introducing himself as Daniel, pouring drinks, and telling macabre stories about the East. The point is not only to impress them, but to make himself feel familiar in a place meant to feel strange. Sabraj comes across as a man who has been lying his way across Asia for years. He is half-Vietnamese and half-Indian, born in the East and raised in France, which lets him move through the world like a slice of home in a far-off land. The story uses that background to show how easily he slips into the confidence of Western travelers. He does not need to push the scene. He already fits inside it. The story then expands into one of his bigger schemes. In Delhi, he is connected with a Frenchman planning a major jewel heist. The idea is to rent the hotel room above the jewelry store and drill through the floor at night. It sounds straightforward until the drill loses power and breaks on the third day. When that plan falls apart, Sabraj turns to something more direct. He lures the shop owner upstairs under the pretense of meeting a wealthy client, then ambushes and ties him up. He leaves the hotel with diamonds and heads for the Delhi airport, hoping to catch the first flight to Iran. Customs is suddenly sealed off before he can get through, and he abandons the jewels and returns home empty-handed. The shop owner frees himself and calls the police shortly after Sabraj leaves, and that eyewitness account leads to his arrest in Mumbai a few days later. The story makes clear that prison is the one place he fears most, and that fear drives what comes next. While in holding, he suddenly collapses in severe pain. The performance is convincing enough that the guards rush him to the hospital, where he plans to slip away once he is left unattended. A young doctor shuts that down by diagnosing appendicitis and ordering an emergency appendectomy. The surgery buys the doctors time and takes the escape out of Sabraj’s hands. It also shows how often his schemes depend on other people missing the moment. After the operation, he recovers in a private room under constant surveillance. Only his wife is allowed to visit, and her role in the escape varies depending on the source. In one version, she drugs the guard. In another, she waits for him to fall asleep and steals his keys. Either way, the result is the same: Sabraj gets out. The uncertainty only sharpens the myth around him. The closing material pushes beyond the Delhi case and into the end of his long run. Authorities around the world believe he committed upwards of 20 murders, though they were only able to convict him of three. The story also notes that Nepal released him to France in 2022, citing good behavior and poor health, and that as of 2025 he is living freely in France. The final note is bleak. The man who built his life on manipulation, violence, and spectacle is still living inside the story he made.

As heard by us

A grim, tightly paced portrait of charm turned predation, with a final stretch that lands hard.

It tracks Charles Sobhraj at the point where charm becomes a tool, set against a Delhi hotel bar, a French student tour group, and a man who could sound like home in a foreign place.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a conman story where charm, lies, and escape all collide.

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