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Operation Nemesis and Other Historic Paybacks

Khalid Elhassan November 17, 2019 32 min

Armenian Genocide - 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

Jonathan Wilde. National Portrait Gallery

29. The Thief Catcher Who Was Also a Crime Boss

Eighteenth-century English crime boss Jonathan Wilde (1682 – 1725) ruled an underground kingdom of thieves and highwaymen, ran far-flung extortion racked, and was Britain’s biggest fence for stolen goods. After he feigned reform, the authorities turned to Wilde, gave him the title “Thief Taker”, and set him loose on the criminals running amok and terrorizing London.

Wilde took to his new job and title with a passion, forming highly effective teams of thief catchers who fell upon the criminals with a will, breaking up gangs and sending criminals to the gallows by the dozen. During his thief-catching career, at least 120 were executed based on Wilde’s testimony and information he furnished the authorities. However, far from having gone legit, Wilde had hoodwinked everybody. The Thief Catcher became an even bigger criminal kingpin, ridding himself of competitors by delivering them to the authorities.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.