Adam Worth

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Adam Worth : biography

1844 – January 8, 1902

Worth began to work for the prominent fence and criminal organizer Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum. With her help he expanded into bank and store robberies around 1866 and eventually began to plan his own heists. In 1869 he helped Mandelbaum to break out safecracker Charley Bullard from the White Plains Jail through a tunnel.

With Bullard, Worth robbed the vault of the Boylston National Bank in Boston on November 20, 1869, again through a tunnel, this time from a neighboring shop. The bank alerted the Pinkertons who tracked the shipment of trunks Worth and Bullard had used to ship the loot to New York. Worth decided to move to Europe with Bullard.

London master criminal

In England, Worth and his associates bought Western Lodge at Clapham Common. He also leased an apartment in Mayfair and joined high society. He formed his own criminal network and organized major robberies and burglaries through several intermediaries. Those who worked in his schemes never knew his name. He insisted that his subordinates should not use violence.

Eventually Scotland Yard learned of his network though they were initially unable to prove anything. Inspector John Shore made Worth’s capture his personal mission. Things began to go wrong when Worth’s brother John was sent to cash a forged cheque in Paris, for which he was arrested and extradited to England. Worth managed to exonerate him and get him sent back to the USA. Four of his associates were arrested in Istanbul for spreading more forged letters of credit and he had to use a considerable amount of money to buy off the judges and the police. Bullard became increasingly violent as his alcoholism worsened, and he eventually left for New York, followed soon after by Kitty.

In 1876, Worth personally stole Thomas Gainsborough’s recently rediscovered painting of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, from a London gallery of Agnew & Sons with the help of two associates. He was taken with the painting and did not try to sell it. The two men who assisted in the robbery, Junka Phillips and Little Joe, grew impatient. Phillips tried to make him talk about the theft in the presence of a police informer and Worth effectively fired him. Worth gave Little Joe money to return to the USA where he tried to rob the Union Trust Company, was arrested and talked to the Pinkertons. They alerted Scotland Yard but they still could not prove anything.

Worth kept the painting with him even when he was traveling and organizing new schemes and robberies. Eventually he decided to travel to South Africa where he stole $500,000 worth of uncut diamonds. Back in London, he founded Wynert & Company which sold diamonds at a lower price than the competitors.

In the 1880s Worth married a Louise Margaret Boljahn still using the name Henry Raymond and they had a son Henry and a daughter Beatrice. It is possible his wife did not know his real identity. He smuggled the painting to the USA and left it there.