WEBVTT - The Napoleon of Crime: Adam Worth 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:02.720 Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:05.880 Hey, Saren, what's up, Elizabeth? 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:06.760 Are you? 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:07.960 I'm doing pretty good? 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:08.440 Good. 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:10.360 Yeah, I've been wearing all your hoodies? 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:10.840 Have you? 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:11.920 Is that where they all went? 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.800 Totally? Have been a really fun week. People are like, dude, 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.040 you've been dressing a lot better this week. And I'm like, 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.400 I know, it's not always the same two hoodies. 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:20.960 Interesting. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.439 Yeah, they're like, is that a good Dard quote? 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.000 I was like, no, no, it's that's so you're the 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:28.240 one who's been breaking in and stealing all my stuff? 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:29.639 Cool this week? 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:30.840 Cool? 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.080 You know, it's ridiculous, I do, Elizabeth. Imagine this. Okay, 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.120 in a place called Ashland County, which I think is 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.839 in Virginia. I'm pretty sure it's in Virginia, there was 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.600 this bandit, this mask bandit, who broke in to a 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.600 liquor store and ABC store and that's what it's called 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.280 by brand name ABC, and they drank up a bunch 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:54.200 of bourbon, you know, and then they passed out drunk 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:55.240 on the bathroom floor. 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:56.040 Okay. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.840 The great part was that the mask bandit was a raccoon. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:05.600 Wait what Yeah, So the Hanover County Animal Protection they 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.760 found a raccoon passed out in the toilet of the 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.320 ABC starter. They broke like numerous bottles of bourbon drank 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.040 up like I'm assuming licked it up. I don't think 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.440 they're taking slugs out of the bottle, but maybe anyway, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.120 the trash panda was just trashed on the floor of 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.120 the bathroom and then quote, after a few hours of 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.480 sleep and zero signs of injury other than maybe a 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.800 hangover and poor life choices, he was safely released back 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:33.120 to the wild. That's from animal transport or animal protection rather. 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:35.880 So there you go. I thought that was pretty good that, 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.560 you know, it's ridiculous. You'd never expect, you know, to 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.280 hear about a mass bandit and it's a. 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.280 Raccoon and it's you got me there right there you go. 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.040 It's ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:46.880 Please? 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:51.080 Being the Napoleon of crime, can you do that? 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:51.440 Yes? 0:01:51.480 --> 0:02:15.400 You can. This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.880 and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.040 percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:25.359 Ah, you damn right. 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.119 We love a non violent criminal, don't we, Folks? 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:31.560 We do, Oh, we do. 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:34.200 And we love a cast of characters, right. 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.120 Gang, you say a cat of characters, oh cast, yes, 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:37.600 them too. 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:40.440 Hold on to your support, host, Zaren, I have a 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:41.600 hum dinger for you. 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:42.960 Oh I'm going to pull them up. 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:43.280 Yeah. 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:47.160 So this guy, right, his exploits take place at such 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.480 an interesting time in history, especially from a crime perspective. 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:55.480 So let's dig into this ridiculous Schmorgesborg. 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:56.040 You do. 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:57.840 I want to tell you about Adam Worth. 0:02:58.080 --> 0:02:58.360 Okay. 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.240 He was born in eighteen forty four in Prussia into 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.160 a German Jewish family whose exact town of origin we 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:06.800 do not know. 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.240 It probably has, like you know, changed over time. 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:10.720 He's building a missigees. 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.160 In the Prussian Empire, right, So yeah. 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:16.080 I mean we all know immigration records from that era incomplete. 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.480 Totally lost. So why I tell people count Laslow There. 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:20.520 It is and they believe you as well they should. 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.000 His parents immigrated to the US when he was really young, 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:28.000 and they settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father was a tailor, 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:32.720 a hard working family. Adam was like this quiet, intelligent, 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:37.640 introverted child, didn't cause trouble, did well in school. He 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.640 was something of like a math and logistics whiz ah yeah. 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.360 And Cambridge just like Mit and Harvard. 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:47.000 I right, yeah, yeah exactly, And so you know all 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:49.680 of these things they would come in handy later in life. Okay, 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.360 in his teens he worked in a dry goods store. 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.800 He was like, did clerical work. He was a good boy. 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:57.920 Sounds like he didn't break the law, didn't hang with 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.640 the wrong crowd. Remember when you recently told me about 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:03.360 that original bank robber. 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.040 Guy, yeah, George Leon Leslie. 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.720 Yes. And how the Civil War impacted crime in the 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.720 US vastly. Yes, well we're about to see that again. 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:12.480 I love that. 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.080 I know you do. So when the Civil War broke 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.039 out in eighteen sixty one, you. 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:19.440 Know I loved nineteenth century crime. 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:24.200 Waste Worth was seventeen. He enlisted in the Union Army 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.400 by lying about his age. Okay, it's not clear, like 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.400 why he was so like chomping at the bit to 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:31.920 get out there patriotism? 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:32.440 Was it? 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.480 Teenage? Bravado? Restlessness? Who knows? 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.400 My grandfather lied about his age. She joined the navy 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:40.760 and to get out of Iowa. So it happened. He 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.719 said he was seventeen when he's actually sixteen. Oh, interact, 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:44.080 then you. 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.840 Can get into. Who knows, maybe he just wanted to 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.120 get out out of Massachusetts. What we do know is 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.640 that army life was not for him. Yeah, yeah, he deserted, 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.520 good for him. Then he re enlisted under an alias 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.480 no even better, and then he deserted again. 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:00.440 I love it, I know. 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.800 So desertion was common in like the early years of 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:08.320 the war. Everything super chaotic, like the training supplies, leadership, 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:09.680 like there's it's all over the place, and. 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:11.359 There were plenty of woods to run into. 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:13.560 Oh it is so easy. And there were so many 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.880 who were like conscripted, who had zero interest in being there. 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:18.160 And they realized it sucked when they got there, Like 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.240 I got a couple of hot meals, and how I 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:20.680 realized I. 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.919 Had two dirt farmer ancestors in Alabama and they certainly 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.640 could not afford the men of the house, leaving a 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:29.680 mom and a grandma and like a grip of kids 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.640 to like scrape out a living in the middle of nowhere. 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.640 So one of the men deserted and came home to 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.360 keep the family fed. The other one came home missing 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:42.880 a leg, lost cause indeed, So back to Worth August 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:47.520 eighteen sixty two. So Worth, he when he re enlisted 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.680 after desertion. The first time he used an alias. So 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.080 he's serving under this alias. 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.320 And he's not flipping sides, he's just serving, just. 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:02.839 Going yeah Ni precisely, So he's serving under an alias. 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.479 At the time, he was mistakenly listed as killed in 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:09.240 action at the Second Battle of bull Run. Oh. 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:10.960 I love that. I report on that one. 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.440 I don't know if it was like a clerical error 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.239 or if like someone misidentified him in the field of battle. 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.520 Either way, this gave him an idea anassis. If he 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.280 was already quote dead according to the US government, then 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.599 he figured he had like basically been given a blank slate, 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.359 and so he could reinvent himself. They had no legal 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.680 accountability for desertion, totally couldn't draft him. I love him, 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.520 So he seized the opportunity. He's now a dead man. 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.279 So he heads for the Northeast, where, like the cities 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.280 there rapidly changing, things are getting exciting. He dives right 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:51.640 in New York in the mid eighteen sixties. It's full 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:58.160 of new immigrants, corrupt politicians, massive wealth disparity, yes, yes, 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.440 and so crime is just flourishing in areas like the 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:02.560 Fourth Ward and the. 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:04.360 Bowery little five points. 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.040 Little five points gangs of New York era, so they're 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:11.800 like pickpocket gangs, river thieves, burglars, fences, everything's operating out 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:16.520 in the open. Yes, young Adam Worth he found himself 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:22.480 drawn into increasingly sophisticated criminal circles. So he starts out 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.080 in like the pickpocket gangs, and then he keeps working 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.640 his way up. One of the most important figures in 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:32.880 his early criminal development was Fredrika Marm Mandelbomb. 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.920 Oh, yes, we've we kind of touched on her. Should 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:36.320 do a story. 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.160 Well, that's I'm thinking she totally needs her own episode. 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:41.960 She was like his own family. She was a German 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.440 Jewish immigrant, but where his family was honest and law abiding. 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:51.120 Marm ran the largest and most profitable fencing operation in 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:56.720 the country, and she supplied tools to burglars. She financed 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:01.440 really big jobs, and she bought stolen go like at scale. 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.400 So she's this shrewd judge of talent too, and she 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.840 really quickly she saw Adam Worth, and she's like, guys, smart, 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.360 super pleasant to be around, and he stays so calm 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:14.160 under pressure. 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:15.360 That's super valuable. 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.880 Huge, So she's like he's also he's not a brawler, 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:23.720 he's not a drinker. Can recommend him soft spoken, he's calculating. 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:28.160 He's like super methodical, logistical minded. Huh. So she starts 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.320 giving him responsibilities that she usually wouldn't entrust to newcomers. 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.760 She's got him planning robberies, supervising crews. You know, again 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.000 with the logistic stuff. And because he had all this 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:44.640 math and organizational skills, you combine that in. He also 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.480 had an ability to like assume different identities. Really yeah, 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.839 it was really easy for him. So he becomes invaluable 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.560 to marm I bet So. His most important early partnership 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:03.640 was with Charles Piano Charlie Bullard, So Pianolie, Piano Charlie. 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.440 They like, he's believed to have been born in the 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:10.240 eighteen forties, maybe in New York State, maybe in Ohio. 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.600 Like he didn't tell anyone the truth. He was suave, 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:18.640 he was charismatic. He was also a musically talented safe cracker. 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.640 Oh yeah, interesting, well it really was. He was musically gifted. 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.679 He played the piano in saloons, in boarding houses. That's 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.000 the name Piano Charlie, sometimes as like a legit job, 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.840 sometimes as a cover to scout potential targets, and so 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.640 he was this expert with lock picks and explosives. So 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:42.240 you combine that with worse skills in planning, timing, evasion, 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:47.200 these two are unstoppable. And there were stumbles along the way. 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.079 Charlie got busted and locked up for stealing one hundred 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.840 thousand dollars worth of stuff from the Hudson River Railway Express. 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:59.760 Marm Mandelbaum needed her safe cracker out of the clink. Folks. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.680 We got ourselves a good old fashioned jail break. Yes, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.440 So Marm rents an office across the street from the 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.360 prison where Charlie's being held. She bribes some guards. They 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:11.800 keep things quiet, and when the time is right, they 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:14.720 helped kick off a riot. And it was then that 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.520 Worth coordinated a crew to tunnel into Bullard's cell. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:23.280 Wow, so she's doing basically setting up what you do 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.120 for a bank robbery, but to get out her piano Charlie. 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.760 Right, But people weren't doing tunneling bank robbery, Yes, exactly, 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.680 But the technique worked, and so they're like, you know what, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.200 let's run with this. And then that happened. The running 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.240 with it happened that Boyleston National bank in Boston in 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:43.000 eighteen sixty nine. So the Boyleston National Bank robbery is 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.560 thought by like some historians, as one of the earliest major, professional, 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:52.480 highly planned, technically sophisticated bank burglaries in the US during 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.880 the post Civil War period, right up there with your guide, 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.960 George Leonidis Leslie. So the robbery was significant for two reasons. 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:02.360 It marked one of the first times that a crew 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:06.440 tunneled into a bank, and it also it was what 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.079 put Adam Worth on the radar of the Pinkerton Agency. 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:14.160 Oh yeah, so this is no, this is a critical 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:18.520 event in the evolution of organized burglary totally by eighteen 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.560 sixty nine. So banks they're like relying on heavy iron 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:27.280 safes with combination locks, like pretty simple vault rooms. They've 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:32.320 got like a watchmen or two and then limited night patrols. Timelocks. 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:33.560 Safes weren't really a thing. 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.400 Yeah, Yale hasn't really reinvented the safe fault. 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.520 So skilled safe crackers what they call boxmen like Piano 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.959 Charlie could manipulate or like drill locks with enough time 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.199 and quiet. All right, now, let's talk about Boston, right 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.400 recovering from like all this wartime economic turbulence and things 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.760 are in an upswing. So the banks brimming with merchant money, 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.559 trade receipts, railroad financing. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.560 Right, of course you're getting seen all that come into play, 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:03.920 all the big railroad trust. 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:08.719 Yeah, there's gold, negotiable bonds, like lots of loot, loose security. 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:13.240 Perfect combination for Worth and piano Charlie. So just like 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:15.800 if the jail break, they rented a room next to 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.960 Boylston Bank. First things first, Worth watched the guards and 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.400 got a sense of their schedules. He tracked and analyzed 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.440 the access that bank employees had to the vault. And 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:28.520 then speaking of the vault, he mapped the layout. He 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.160 knew every inch of the place, so he established the 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.120 timing that would work best. And then they started tunneling 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.160 through that shared wall. Remember no one had really done 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:39.120 this before. 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:40.760 Territories brilliant. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.280 They worked late at nights so people wouldn't hear them, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.720 and then they put up special drapes to keep the 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:49.839 the dust controlled so I wasn't showing out. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:51.679 And also you got like cops are walking around, so 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:53.959 you need kind of like a screen to hide bar 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:54.640 work from them. 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.600 Exactly. So once in piano Charlie got to work, so 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.200 he manipulated the tumble by sound and feel. They didn't 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.400 have to blast their way in. It was clean, it 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.400 was elegant, and this was a hallmark of the new 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:12.080 gentleman burglar style that was emerging in American cities, George 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.680 Leslie's style. So worth in Piano Charlie. They cleaned the 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.960 place out. It's said that they came away with somewhere 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.200 between one hundred thousand two hundred thousand dollars damn, which 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.120 today is two point four million to four point eight million. 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.800 That's insane, that's an incredible amount of guys. Two guys. 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.360 I would quitt done. 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:38.640 Exactly Ruba, Jamaica. So they got cash, negotiable securities, bonds, gold, 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.160 certificates of deposit. It's a perfect haul because it's easy 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:47.559 to transport, difficult to trace. Boston police stunned. This didn't 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.040 look like any of the robberies, any of the local 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.760 gangs don't pull off too clean. They're like, you know what, 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.320 whoever did this had to be from New York City, 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:01.559 Like New York City, so they called in the Pinkertons, 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:06.360 and the Pinkerton Agency soon linked the job to piano, 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.719 Charlie and Worth. They couldn't prove it, but they're like, oh, 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.400 and at this time the stories all over the papers, 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.600 the press are loving it. But then like there's no 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:21.080 real leads, interest tapers off. One thing the Pinkertons did 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:25.720 uncover was that Worth and Charlie had shipped some trunks 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:29.200 from Boston to New York. And that wasn't an actual lead, 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:32.720 but it sent up red flags for the Pinkertons. Marm 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.240 and Charlie and Worth. They knew the red flags were 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:39.480 bad for business always, So with the heat increasing, Worth 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.000 and Charlie headed to Europe. Marm had all these connections 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.720 there who could get the pair plugged in. Off they go. 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.200 They go to London, and this was the beginning of 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:53.120 Worth's evolution from like skilled thief to criminal mastermind. Totally 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.800 think about London in the early eighteen seventies. So it's 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.280 the largest city in the world, center of an empire, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.080 and it was somewhere that a guy with like charm 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.720 and money and false papers could easily blend in with 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.800 the swells. So he was now going by the name 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:13.200 Henry Judson Raymond, and he was a respectable American businessman 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.520 he had the spoils of all his East Coast jobs, 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:20.000 so he bought himself nice suits, he rented a fancy flat. 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:25.640 He ingratiated himself with all the local American expats, and 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.720 then he starts assembling this crew of specialists from the 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.600 criminal underworld. Wow, let's take a break. When we come back, 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.000 I'm going to tell you about this new crime syndicate 0:15:35.120 --> 0:16:00.440 Worth was building and where that took him. Zaren Elizabeth Zarnabeth. 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.280 When we left off, Adam Worth was living in London 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.840 as Henry Judson Raymond love that name. Yeah, he was 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.040 living the good life, setting up a new gang of thieves, 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:11.680 and he had. 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.080 A code and he was looking clean. 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:14.320 Oh, he's looking so clean. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:19.040 He's he's got one of those little cigarette or like 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.000 a cigar tampers, like on the gold chain. 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.280 Like, oh, he's got everything. He's a fine dress man. 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:31.280 Worth believed violence was the enemy of a successful criminal enterprise. Ooh, 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:36.280 I like that. A violent crime always generated public panics 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.680 and that brought on police involvement. 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.400 Totally in anger and fear, all the things you don't want. 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.960 So he was like, you know, non violent crimes, but 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.440 especially ones discovered long afterward, could be quietly forgotten by 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.640 both police and the press, and. 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.240 So his he romanticized by the public. 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.800 Yeah, oh yeah. He forbade his crew from carrying weapons. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.400 Smart can't do it, no enhancements for him. Well, and 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:04.880 anyone who violated the rule got kicked out. I don't 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.080 care how talented you are, how valuable you carry a weapon, 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.040 You're out of here. And so this contributed to like 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:15.879 this really unusually low arrest rate and almost complete absence 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.760 of public attention during his peak years of operations Uber Smart. 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.560 So just like back in the States, his operations were 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:27.720 built on extended surveillance, perfect timing, forged documents. He thought 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.399 of everything, all these like really specific secure escape routes, 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.680 solid contingency plans. He was a logistics. 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.680 Guy totally, and mathematical as hell. 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.960 Yeah, here's a rare criminal who thinks things all the 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.720 way through, you know, like we're always saying, is the problem? 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.920 So Victorian police described him as quote the most patient 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:49.119 burglar on record. 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.160 Hm, I like that somehow a compliment the way they put. 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:57.119 It, Yes, it was very much so. So his fencing 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:02.720 system was also revolutionary for the time. He didn't sell 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:09.120 stolen goods locally. He used multiple brokers across different countries. Yeah, 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:13.080 so a diamond stolen in London would go through like Antwerp, 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.920 Hamburg and New York before being sold in Cape Town. 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:18.119 It's South Africa. 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:23.639 Wow, So his like crazy process made police recovery nearly impossible. 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:25.320 Yeah, because they don't they don't know to be looking 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:26.560 for it, because they don't know what's stolen and it 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.399 was likely not in contact with the London PA. 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.199 Everything in the operation was unprecedented. So he treated his 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:39.160 associates with fairness and professionalism. He paid them promptly, He 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.600 financed their legal defense when they got arrested very smart, 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.280 protected their families if they went to prison. He's like 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.800 took care of that ultimately. And so we had like 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:54.000 this crazy loyalty that heah, it was so rare. So 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.520 he himself, he had a ton of aliases and passports. 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.440 He could pass as an American businessman, a German tourist, 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.760 a French trader, a British gentleman, because he mastered all 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:11.080 of these different languages. No, he was great with language. 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:16.440 He would also learn like the various elements of etiquette 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.600 for high society in all these places. Yeah, he was 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:24.439 so convincing, like in any social context, and so the 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.679 syndicate itself. Historians say that his London operations were like 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:33.280 the first modern criminal corporation, I'd say. And so he 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:37.520 had specialized crews for safe cracking, some that forged documents, 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.000 the jewelry, theft, surveillance, and he made sure to really 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:46.480 compartmentalize all the operations so that no single arrested member 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:51.760 could expose the entire operation structure super siloed. Yeah, and 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.280 he had all kinds of business fronts so he could do, 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:59.320 you know, launder everything shipping, import, export businesses of course. 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.960 And then there were the international associates, so he would 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:05.800 recruit people from like all the criminal hotspots at the time, 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.760 like Paris, Brussels, Hamburg, New York. 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.919 I hope that Hamburg made the list exactly, and like 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.560 his double life got more and more complex. 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.879 So he socialized in all of like London's elegant salons, 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.320 He went to the theater, he hated all the most 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:27.640 fashionable restaurants, and he had this reputation as this charming 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:33.160 cosmopolitan and he collected upper class acquaintances not just for 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:38.879 pleasure but for information. And so he had you know, 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:42.800 he's got these impeccable manners, this understated style. He's the 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.440 last person any of these people would think would be 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:45.919 a criminal. 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.399 Oh he's super culture. They're thinking he's like a landering count. 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:51.840 And he didn't. He didn't like flaunt his wealth. He 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.840 didn't associate with hard men. So yeah, of course they're 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:56.639 going to tell him things and never think that it 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:58.520 you know, Oh, it can be traced back to he's 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.440 the one who did something along the way. He got 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:06.560 married Louise Margaret Balduc. She was a frenchwoman, had no 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:08.400 knowledge of his criminal activities. 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.280 Really, not just saying that in court, but. 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.800 This truly did. And they wound up having two kids together. 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.320 He kept his whole family, the wife and kids, totally 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:19.119 shielded from his world of crime. 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:20.000 They had no. 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.080 Idea when he wasn't home. They thought he was traveling 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:23.960 for business. 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:25.640 Of course, and it made very international. 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:29.080 Yeah, he ye had all the import export businesses and such. 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:31.480 It was in this time that he pulled his most 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:36.920 famous and audacious theft. Let's talk about Thomas Gainsborough's portrait 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.199 of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:42.280 Oh totally dude, Oh my goodness. 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:44.720 So I wish we could have bendor on as a 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:47.159 guest right now to talk about painting. Alas you'll have 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.199 to make do with Lilo Me. Portrait was painted in 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:54.280 seventeen eighty seven. Gainsborough is widely regarded as one of 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:57.520 the most gifted portrait and landscape painters in British hist. 0:21:57.480 --> 0:21:59.120 I'll say one of the best, if not the best, 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:00.080 in British history. 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.200 Yes, he helped define the look and style of late 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.720 eighteenth century British art. And he was known for like this, 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:11.320 really elegant fluid brushwork, nuanced luminous color. 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:12.400