Guest Arrested After Duping 300 Luxury Hotels, Skipped Hyatt Bill And Stole Laptop

Serial hotel scammer Bingson John was arrested after a complaint from the Hyatt Raipur where he allegedly checked in on June 25, 2026, left two days later without paying a $670 bill, and took a hotel-provided laptop valued at $1,555 with him. The hotel had tried to track him down but his phone numbers were disconnected.

The local police Anti-Crime & Cyber Unit tracked the man down and arrested him within 72 hours and recovered the laptop – it was remarkably easy considering what turns out to be this man’s history staying at over 300 luxury hotels without paying over a period of more than 30 years, 15 of which were spent in prison.

Apparently he would present himself as a foreign tour guide, an English teacher, or a yoga instructor to (somehow) look respectable enough to belong at a high-end property. He’d then leave without paying, often taking hotel property with him as he did in this case.

He confessed to a string of such stay and dashes since 1990 across 10 Indian states, usually in major cities. He says that his fiancée’s death in the early 1990s pushed him into this lifestyle. He treated jails as “home” and luxury hotels as “vacation.” He faces up to 7 years imprisonment plus a fine for failing to pay the Hyatt and stealing their laptop.

बिंगसन जॉन गिरफ्तार।
देश के कई राज्यों में ठगी करने वाले आरोपी को रायपुर पुलिस कमिश्नरेट ने मात्र 72 घंटे में गिरफ्तार किया।#policecommissionerateraipur #raipurpolicecommissionerate pic.twitter.com/VsCB8g1G5o

— Police Commissionerate Raipur (@CPRaipurPolice) July 3, 2026

But wait, a laptop? Hyatt’s “Hyatt Has It” program offers toiletries, chargers, adapters, headphones, humidifiers, yoga mats, cribs, games, booster seats and highchairs. There’s no Hyatt laptop lending program that I’m aware of, and while this hotel advertises “Business Services” for printing, fax, or “computer needs,” I can’t find a ‘guest laptop lending program’. Nonetheless, police reports say this was “provided on request” and “rented.”

The man’s inspiration for 30 years of high end hotel hijincks was reportedly Charles Sobhraj, the French national born to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother, known as “The Serpent” and “Bikini Killer.” He was convicted of murder and suspected of killing more than 20 Western backpackers across Asia, usually by drugging food and drinks while robbing them. He used disguises, aliases, charm, and evasion. He was jailed in India, escaped in 1986 after drugging guards, was recaptured in Goa, and deported to France in 2022. Apparently it was the false identities, charm, mobility, and exploitation of trust that this man sought to mimic.