Adam Worth Adam Worth ( 1844 – January 8 , 1902 ) was an American criminal . Scotland Yard detective Robert Anderson nicknamed him " the Napoleon of the criminal world " , and he is commonly referred to as " the Napoleon of Crime . " Earlier life . Adam Worth was born into a poor Jewish family in Germany . His original surname might have been " Werth " . When he was five years old , his family moved to Cambridge , Massachusetts in the United States and his father became a tailor . In 1854 , he ran away from home and moved first to Boston and then in 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 two months . He was wounded in the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 30 , 1862 and was shipped to a Georgetown Hospital in Washington DC . In the hospital , he learned he had been listed as " killed in action " and left . Criminal career . Worth became a bounty jumper ; enlisting into various regiments with assumed names , receiving his pay , and then deserting . When the Pinkerton Detective Agency began to track him , like many others using similar methods , he fled to New York City and went to Portsmouth . After the war , Worth became a pickpocket in New York . In time , he founded his own gang of pickpockets , and then began to organize robberies and heists . When he was caught stealing the cash box of an Adams Express wagon , he was sentenced to three years imprisonment in Sing Sing ; he soon escaped and resumed his criminal career . Worth began 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 began to plan 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 on November 20 , 1869 , again through a tunnel , this time from a neighboring shop . The bank alerted the 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 . Bullard and Worth went first to Liverpool . Bullard had taken the identity of " Charles H . Wells " , a Texas oilman . Worth was financier " Henry Judson Raymond " , the name he would use for years afterwards . They began to compete for the favors of a barmaid named Kitty Flynn who eventually learned their true identities . She became Bullard ' s wife but did not disfavor Worth , either . In October 1870 , Kitty gave birth to a daughter , Lucy Adeleine , and seven years later had another daughter named Katherine Louise . The paternity of these two girls is left up to debate . It is possible that Kitty herself did not know , but Bullard and Worth claimed each child all the same . William Pinkerton believed Adam Worth fathered both of Kitty ' s daughters . When the Bullards went on their honeymoon , Worth began to rob local pawnshop s . 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 was still in disarray after the events of the Paris Commune . Worth and his associates founded an " American Bar " , a 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 be sounded from downstairs to alert the customers before any police raid . Worth formed a new gang of associates , including some of his old comrades from New York . When Allan Pinkerton , founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency , visited the place in 1873 , Worth recognized him . Later the Paris police raided the place numerous times and Worth and the 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 Western Lodge at Clapham Common . He also leased an apartment in Mayfair and joined high society . He 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 insisted that his subordinates should not use violence . Eventually Scotland Yard learned of his network though they were initially unable to 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 , for which he was arrested and extradited to England . Worth managed to exonerate him and get him sent back to the USA . Four of his associates were arrested in Istanbul 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 became increasingly violent as his alcoholism worsened , and he eventually left for New York , followed soon after by Kitty . In 1876 , Worth personally stole Thomas Gainsborough ' s recently rediscovered painting of Georgiana Cavendish , Duchess of Devonshire , from a London gallery of Thomas Agnew & Sons with the help of two associates . He was taken with the painting and did not try to sell it . The two men who assisted in the robbery , 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 the 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 Wynert & Company which sold diamonds at a lower price than the competitors . In the 1880s Worth married a Louise Margaret Boljahn still using the name Henry Raymond and they had a son Henry and a daughter Beatrice . It is possible his wife did not know his real identity . He smuggled the painting to the 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 Shinburn , Worth ' s rival , when police had captured them both . Worth 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 inquiries abroad . Both the New York Police Department and Scotland Yard identified him as Worth , although the Pinkertons did not say anything . Max Shinburn , now in jail , told the police everything he knew . In jail , Worth 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 by British and American police , were mere hearsay . He claimed that his wealth came out of legal gambling . In the end Worth was sentenced to seven years for robbery and was sent to Leuven prison . During his first year in jail , Shinburn hired other inmates to beat Worth up . Later Worth heard that Johnny Curtin , who was supposed to have taken care of his wife , had seduced and abandoned her . She had gone insane and been committed to an asylum . The children were in the care of his brother John in the United States . 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 , to whom he described the events of his life in great detail . The manuscript that Pinkerton wrote after Worth left is still preserved in the archives of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Van Nuys , California . Through Pinkerton , Worth arranged the return of the painting " Duchess of Devonshire " to Agnew & Sons in return for $ 25 , 000 . The portrait and payment were exchanged in Chicago on March 28 , 1901 . Worth returned to London with his children and spent the rest of his life with them . His son took advantage of an agreement between his father and Allan Pinkerton and became a career Pinkerton detective . Adam Worth died on 8 January 1902 . He was buried in Highgate Cemetery in a mass pauper ' s grave under the name of " Henry J . Raymond " . A small tombstone was erected to mark his resting place in 1997 by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation . In popular culture . It has been widely speculated that Arthur Conan Doyle used Worth as the prototype for Sherlock Holmes ' adversary , Professor Moriarty . In his " Books Alive " column in " The Chicago Sunday Tribune " ( 26 December 1943 ) , Vincent Starrett wrote , " Worth was the original of Prof . Moriarty . This information , which isn ' t generally known , was revealed by Conan Doyle in conversation with Dr . Gray C . Briggs of St . Louis , Dr . Briggs once told me . " Starrett was a good friend of Dr . Gray Chandler Briggs ( 1882 — 1942 ) , a St . Louis doctor and X - ray specialist . Adam Worth biographer Ben Macintyre also traces the inspiration for Macavity , the Mystery Cat , in T . S . Eliot ' s " Old Possum ' s Book of Practical Cats " to Doyle ' s rendition of Moriarty . Andrew Lloyd Webber , in turn , based his hit musical , " Cats " , on T . S . Eliot ' s work , including the character Macavity , who Demeter & Bombalurina declare , is " the Napoleon of Crime ! " Michael Caine plays Adam Worth in the film " Harry and Walter Go to New York " . Though Worth is correctly portrayed as a criminal mastermind , the events of the story are not based on true events . In the SyFy Channel series " Sanctuary " , Adam Worth is one of the main villains , although his character is Irish and includes elements of Robert Louis Stevenson ' s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde . The eighth season of the CBS series " Criminal Minds " has Adam Worth being used as a pseudonym for the season ' s main villain John Curtis " The Replicator " ( Mark Hamill ) .