Word: cons
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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ARRESTED. Charles Sobhraj, 59, seductive con man and accused serial killer, who has spent more than 20 years in Asian jails but has never been convicted of murder; in Kathmandu. The feral Sobhraj, a half-Indian, half-Vietnamese French citizen, traveled between Europe and Asia in the '60s and '70s picking up Western tourists and drugging and robbing them. By the time Indian police caught up with him in 1976-after he drugged a hotel buffet served to French tourists-he was a suspect in the murder of at least 20 travelers in Afghanistan, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Nepal, Thailand...
...primitive at Banpo Beer Hut, tel: (86-10) 6525 5583, the little grotto that can. Named for the Neolithic settlement outside Xi'an, this underground pub on central Wangfujing Street is so bad it's great. Sip a Tsingtao on the heated platform beds, necessitated by the chilly air-con. The friendly staff is in on the joke, hyping the primordial kitsch while urging you into the karaoke cave. Chest thumping accepted; hair pulling discouraged...
...there flipping burgers at a fast-food joint. Former Symbionese Liberation Army member James Kilgore, sought for his role in the 1975 murder of church worker Myrna Opsahl during a bank robbery in Carmichael, Calif., was found last year teaching economics at the University of Cape Town. And German con man Jurgen Harksen, who had lived in the city since 1993, was extradited to Germany last year, where he was convicted of fraud. Why do fugitives flock to this beautiful city? "Perhaps they think we're at the end of the world," ventures a spokesman for the mayor. "Little...
...hands of underground-comic pioneer Spain Rodriguez, the 1946 William Lindsay Gresham novel (later a 1947 movie) gets the cartoon treatment its subjects--hustling and degradation in a 1930s carnival--beg for. Magician Stanton Carlisle hatches a plan to pose as a spiritualist to con rich marks, in the process revealing the family history that destroyed his faith in God and man. Nightmare Alley (Fantagraphics; 129 pages) is an existential novel wrapped in a noir chiller, and Rodriguez's lurid drawings strike just the right balance of sheen and sleaze. Step right...
...where Guthrie got a job as a nightclub manager. The latter-day Bonnie and Clyde are not alone. In 1999 Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, an al-Qaeda agent wanted for the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania, was found there flipping burgers at a fast-food joint. And German con man Jurgen Harksen, who had lived in the city since 1993, was extradited last year and convicted of fraud. "Perhaps they think we're at the end of the world," ventures a spokesman for Cape Town's mayor. "Little do they know. Our international links are strong." - By Simon Robinson...