Honour amongst thieves.

[Horsebox]

Did this really exist back in the good old days or is it load of old romanticising cobblers, used simply to dress up some of societies more undesirable characters in their sunday best?

Perhaps it still exists now. Anyone with a bit of 'knowledge' care to shed some light on this?

All anonymous like. Gertcha!

[Santerme]

The closest to this is the Vor society of thieves in Russia, although funnily enough most are post-Soviet non Russians.

The organisations roots go back to the time of the Russian Revolution and survived the Communist regime, which they held in contempt.

[LegalEagle-ish]

I remember talking to a sucessful old time bank robber / gangster who had his fingers in a lot of pies and he had very cordial relations with the old bill and told me that it was not uncommon for him and his ilk to grass on rivals in order to take over some of their business if they had become 'too' sucessful. So I don't really think that there was any honour amongst those theives.

[computedshorty]

?

[Santerme]

I think you will find he didn't use them to fence the metal and they had a major sense of humour failure!

[Tony.London Suburbs]

This thief obviously did not like to be hoisted by his own petard...

Tea-leaves, generally, get really p+++d off if someone steals their ill-gotten gains.

Bad form, innit Bruv....