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other things.
     Along with a man named Brion, Charles Peace patented a device for raising sunken
     vessels, and worked on a smoke helmet for firemen, an improved brush for washing
     railway carriages and a form of hydraulic tank. Peace was arrested during a burglary
     in Blackheath, after trying to shoot the arresting officer, and was eventually
     hanged in 1879, for the murder of a police officer during an earlier burglary and
     the murder of a love rival. But, like the creeper Flannel Foot,
     Charles Peace took burglary to a more sophisticated level.
    See Creeper
COMMY BURGS
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    Commy burgs , or
     commercial burglars, are the people who will break into warehouses, shops or
     factories in their pursuit of ill-gotten gains. Commy burgs are unlikely to come
     across anyone during their crime, so theirs is seen as an entirely impersonal crime,
     acquisitive rather than violent. Commy burgs are usually highly organized and will
     know exactly what they’re after and sometimes have a buyer lined up before they even
     start. In the twenty-first century a lot of the commy burgs at the top end of the
     scale steal technology, such as microchips and circuit boards, which can be worth a
     small fortune. Others prefer to raid warehouses and steal lorry loads of goods;
     anything with a quick resale value is the order of the day. Nowadays, with the price
     of metal so high, a lot of commy burgs are targeting scrapyards or anywhere that may
     hold unmarked metals that can quickly be weighed in at a scrap merchant’s.
    See Cat Burglars
CRACK CONVERTERS
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    In recent years in most cities and towns
     in the UK there has been an influx of shops that buy or lend money on things of
     value such as jewellery, electrical goods and other household items. Perhaps the
     best known of these is the ubiquitous Cash Converters – known to the thieving junkie
     contingent as Crack Converters , because it’s usually here that they
     convert their stolen goods into cash for crack cocaine and other drugs. Funnily
     enough, Cash Converters usually offers less than a third of the retail price for the
     goods they buy, i.e. less than the criminal fence has traditionally
     offered for stolen goods. These type of businesses normally try to safeguard
     themselves bydemanding various forms of identification from the
     sellers, but thieves, and in particular thieving junkies, have little trouble
     stealing or forging ID – it’s part of the life.
    See Crack , Fence , Fencing , Roger
CREEPER
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    Creeping is the exact opposite to the walk-in . A creeper is the type of burglar who
     enters dwellings while the occupants are in bed and creeps around the premises
     looking for items to steal. The object of the creeper is to get in and out, with the
     valuables, without anyone knowing they’ve been there until the escape has been made.
     Some people get creepers confused with cat burglars , but they are
     slightly different animals. The cat burglar is a climber, whilst the creeper usually
     enters by the ground floor of a premises. Perhaps the most infamous creeper was a
     fella called Flannel Foot, a burglar and jewel thief in the 1930s. The legend goes
     that, during his time in solitary confinement in Dartmoor Prison, Flannel Foot spent
     his entire time training to move in complete silence so as to become a better
     creeper on release. He would scatter various objects around the cell floor,
     blindfold himself and tie cloths around his feet and hands, then try to make his way
     around the cell without disturbing anything or making a noise. In this way, he
     taught himself to move silently in complete darkness so he would never need a light
     while he was committing a burglary and was unlikely to wake the occupants.
    See Sneak Thief
DIP/DIPPER
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    A dip or dipper is a pickpocket. The name comes from the Elizabethan
     era, when the punishment for pickpockets was to be tied to a ducking stool and
     immersed in water until they were near death. The art of