The Con Artist

The Master Thief

When they're good, we tend to use words usually reserved for creative geniuses.

They are people who have taken their skills and elevated them to a form of art.

However, criminal those skills might be.

And Hollywood knows we love them too.

After all, these flawed and complicated characters make for great movies, blockbusters even.

The Italian job, the usual suspects, oceans 11 or 12 or 13.

There's something oddly attractive about criminals, isn't there?

Take Sophie Levy.

She was born in 1848 and managed to steal her first purse by the age of six.

By 12 she'd been arrested for shoplifting and by 20 she'd been locked up in New York's

Singsing Prison three separate times.

Soon after she married an internationally renowned safe cracker and together they pulled off jobs,

spent time in prison and somehow also managed to raise a family.

For the next 30 years Sophie perfected her craft.

She made shoes with hollow heels so she could smuggle diamonds between Amsterdam and New

York.

She sold fake gold bricks.

She even learned to speak French and then traveled to Europe where she picked jewels right

and off the wealthy elite, bringing in close to 4 million in modern American dollars after

just one year of work.

...