Bruce Reynolds was the ‘brains’ behind the ‘Great train robbery’ in 1963 in which a gang robbed £2.4 million. He was a career criminal who liked the high life and drove an Aston Martin. An accomplished housebreaker and jewel thief, he formed the team that ‘took the train’ with friends Buster Edwards, Gordon Goody and driver Roy James amongst others. The robbery remained the most significant heist in British criminal history until the Brinks Mat robbery in 1983. Reynolds went on the run in the aftermath of the Great Train robbery, living under various aliases abroad. He spent considerable time in South America before returning to Britain, where he was tried and sentenced to ten years. Since his release in 1979, he has enjoyed a moderately high profile as a media ‘former criminal’ celebrity and his autobiography ‘The Autobiography of a Thief’ was generally well received.

Born Ronald Edwards, Buster Edwards was a former boxer, nightclub owner, and member of the gang that committed the Great Train Robbery. He was captured in 1966 and sentenced to 15 years in jail. After his release in 1980 he later ran a flower stall outside Waterloo Station. He was played by Phil Collins in the 1988 film Buster. He committed suicide by hanging in 1994.

Ronald Arthur Biggs is an English prisoner who is known for escaping from prison after his minor role in the Great Train Robbery of 1963 and for being on the run for many years. He eventually settled in Brazil but voluntarily returned to the United Kingdom in 2001.

Adam Worth was a German-born gentleman criminal. A Scotland Yard detective named Robert Anderson gave him a nickname, “the Napoleon of the criminal world”,[1] and he is commonly referred to as “the Napoleon of Crime”. It has been widely speculated that Arthur Conan Doyle used Worth as the prototype for Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis, Professor Moriarty.

Francois Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison. The question “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?”, taken from the Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis and translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti as “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”, is one of the most famous lines of translated secular poetry in the English-speaking world.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were notorious outlaws, robbers and criminals who travelled the Central United States during the Great Depression. Their exploits were known nationwide. They captured the attention of the American press and its readership during what is sometimes referred to as the “public enemy era” between 1931 and 1935. Although this couple and their gang were notorious for their bank robberies, Clyde Barrow preferred to rob small stores or gas stations.

Henry More Smith was a confidence man, master puppeteer, hypnotist, seer, liar, and above all else a superlative escape artist. Chains, handcuffs, shackles, even made to fit iron collars could not hold him. Henry More Smith’s genius so deeply impressed the authorities that he received a pardon on condition he would leave New Brunswick and never return when he was caught a second time for horse theft.

Richard “Dick” Turpin is a legendary English rogue and the most famous historical highwayman. In life Richard Turpin was a violent man who committed offences such as deer stealing, burglary, highway robbery, and probably murder. He was executed in York. After his death, as “Dick” Turpin, he became the subject of legend, romanticised in English ballads and popular theatre of the 18th and 19th century, and later in film and television of the 20th century, as the dashing and heroic highwayman. There is considerable divergence between the history and legend of Turpin.

Ishikawa Goemon was a legendary ninja warrior and bandit hero who stole gold and valuables and gave them to the poor. There is little historical information on Ishikawa’s life, and thus he has become a folk hero, whose background and origins have been widely speculated upon. He is notable for being boiled alive after a failed assassination attempt on Toyotomi Hideyoshi. A large iron kettle-shaped bathtub is now called a Goemon-buro.

Source: Wikipedia List of Thieves

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