Eddie Guerin was one of the first criminals to achieve worldwide infamy. When Guerin and his cohorts robbed the Crédit Lyonnais in France on July 2, 1888, the story appeared in the next morning's newspapers in the United States. His escapades soon sparked international notoriety. Arrested in London, Guerin spent ten years in a French prison. When he got out, he and safe‐cracker George Miller robbed the American Express office on April 26, 1901, and got away with $250,000 (the equivalent of $8 million today). Now as "a hardened criminal" the French authorities sentenced him to life on Devil's Island. He achieved even greater notoriety by being one of the first to ever escape the penal colony. Guerin died penniless in 1940 at age 80 in England, and was buried in a pauper's grave, but left as his legacy the story of his criminal exploits.