Author(s): Adam Shand

Australian

The story of the most spectacularly successful shoplifting gang in history, who plundered stores in England and Europe in the 1960s and 1970sthe Kangaroo Gangled by a master thief "King" Arthur Delaney.
From the mid 1960s, a brazen band of Australian thieves ran riot in London for more than a decade, pulling off the most daring heists Scotland Yard had ever seen. They were tagged by the Press as the Kangaroo Gang. The gang, led by the charismatic "King" Arthur Delaney, targeted the plush emporia of Knightsbridge and the fine jewelers of Mayfair. But the King didn't stop there, criss-crossing Europe to lay siege to the luxury retailers of Paris, Brussels, Rome, and beyond.
The Kangaroo Gang operated at a time before closed-circuit television cameras. They elevated shoplifting to an art form practiced without guns or violence. The King always found a way to simply "disappear" with the loot. This is also a love story between the King and his "Queen" Alexis, who tried to tame the greatest of traveling thieves. The King's 30-year criminal odyssey culminated in the biggest job of his careersix million pounds worth of precious gems from Asprey of London, jeweler to the Queenin broad daylight. "King of Thieves" is a true story, soon to be made into a major feature film."