Adam Worth
Adam Worth (1844-1902) was a German-born gentleman criminal. A Scotland Yard detective named Robert Anderson gave him a nickname "the Napoleon of the criminal world".[1]
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Earlier life
Adam Worth was born into a poor Jewish family in Germany in 1844. His original surname might have been Werth.[2] When he was five years old, his family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in USA and his father became a tailor.[3] In 1854 he ran away from home and moved first to Boston and 1860 to New York City. He worked as a clerk in a department store for one month.
When the American Civil War broke out, Worth was 17. He lied about his age and enlisted in the Union army. Worth served in the 2nd New York heavy Artillery, Battery L (later designated 34th New York Battery) and was promoted to sergeant in couple of months. He was wounded in the second battle of Bull Run on August 30th 1861 and was shipped to Georgetown Hospital in Washington DC. In the hospital, he learned he had been listed as "killed in action" and left.
Criminal career
Worth began to enlist into various regiments with assumed names, received his pay, maybe saw some action and deserted. When the Pinkerton Detective Agency began to track him, like some others using the similar methods, he fled to New York City.
After the war, Worth became a pickpocket in New York. He saved most of his money, kept a low profile and avoided violent confrontation. In time, he founded his own gang of pickpockets, begun to organize robberies and heists and mostly worked through intermediaries. When he was caught stealing a cash box of an Adams Express wagon, he was sentenced for three years to Sing Sing but escaped couple of weeks later and continued his affairs.
Worth begun 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 begun to fix 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 in November 20 1869, yet again through a tunnel from a neighboring shop. The bank alerted 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.
Exploits in Europe
In 1877 Bullard and Worth arrived in Liverpool. Bullard had taken the identity of "Charles H. Wells", a Texas oilman. Worth was a financier "Henry Judson Raymond", the name he would use for years afterwards. They began to compete for the favors of a barmaid Kitty Flynn who eventually learned their true identities. She became Bullard's wife but did not disfavor Worth, either.
When Bullards went to their honeymoon, Worth begun to rob local pawnshops. He shared the loot with Bullard and Flynn when they came back and, together, the three moved to Paris in 1871.
In Paris, the police force had its hands full with members of recently crushed Paris Commune. Worth and his associates founded an "American Bar", an restaurant and bar on the ground floor and a gambling den on the upper floor. Because gambling was illegal, the gambling tables were built so that they could be folded inside the walls and the floor. A buzzer would alert the customers before a police raid. Worth formed a new gang of associates, including some of his old comrades from New York.
When William Pinkerton of the Pinkerton Detective Agency visited the place in 1873, Worth recognized him. Later the Paris police raided the place numerous times and the Worth and Bullards decided to abandon the restaurant. Worth used his place for the last time to defraud a diamond dealer and the three moved to London.
London master criminal
In England, Worth and his associates bought West Lodge in Clapham Common. He also leased an apartment in Mayfair and joined the high society. He also 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 demanded that his subordinates should not use violence.
Eventually the Scotland Yard learned of his network though they could not 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, he was arrested and extradited to England; Worth managed to exonerate him and sent him back to USA. Four of his associates were arrested in Constantinople 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's alcoholism got worse, he became violent and eventually left for New York. Eventually Kitty left as well.
1876, Worth personally stole the Duchess of Devonshire, a recently rediscovered painting about Georgiana Spencer from a London gallery of Agnew & Sons with the help of two associates. He was infatuated with the painting and did not try to sell it. The two men, 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 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 a Wynert & Company that sold the diamonds at a cheaper price than the competitors.
In 1881 Worth married a young woman (though her name has not survived) still using the name Henry Raymond and they had a son and a daughter. Possibly his wife did not know his real identity. He smuggled the painting to USA and left it there.
Mistake and capture
In 1892 Worth decided to visit Belgium where Bullard was in jail. He had been working with Max "Baron" Shinburn, Worth's rival, when Belgian police had captured them both. In Belgium he heard that Bullard had recently died.
On October 5 Worth improvised a robbery of a money delivery cart in Liège with two untried associates, one of them the American Johnny Curtin. The robbery went badly wrong and the police captured him on the spot. Two others got away.
In jail Worth refused to identify himself and the Belgian police made enquiries abroad. Both the New York Police Department and Scotland Yard identified him as Worth, although Pinkertons did not say anything. Max Shinburn, now in Belgian jail, told the police everything he knew. In jail, he heard nothing about his family in London but received a letter from Kitty Flynn, who offered to finance his defense.
Worth's trial took place March 20 1893. The prosecutor used everything he knew about Worth. Worth flatly denied that he had anything to do with various crimes, saying that the last robbery had been a stupid act he had committed out of need for money. All the other accusations, including those from the British and American police, were mere hearsay. He claimed that his wealth came out of legal gambling. In the end Worth was sentenced for seven years for robbery and was sent to Leuven prison.
During the first year in jail, Shinburn hired other inmates to beat up Worth. Later Worth heard that Johnny Curtin, who had supposed to take care of his wife, had raped her. She had gone insane and been committed to insane asylum. The children were in the care of his brother John in USA.
Release and last years
Worth was released early for good behavior in 1897. He returned to London and stole £4,000 from a diamond shop to get funds. When he visited his wife, she barely recognized him. He traveled to New York and visited his children. Then he proceeded to meet with William Pinkerton.
Through Pinkerton, Worth arranged the return of the painting Duchess of Devonshire to Agnew & Sons in return for $25,000. The exchange happened in Chicago on March 28 1901. Worth returned to London with his children and spent the rest of his life with them.
Adam Worth died January 8 1902. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery under the name of "Henry J. Raymond".
References
- ^ MacIntyre, Ben - The Napoleon of Crime (1997) ISBN 0-385-31993-2 p. 6 "Adam Worth ... occasionally, Werth) was born in 1844 somewhere in eastern Germany. His father and mother were German Jews"
- ^ ibid. p. 7 "Scotland Yard detective Robert Anderson called him 'the Napoleon of the criminal world'"
- ^ ibid. p. 6 "Worth pére set up shop as a tailor in the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts."