5 Criminal Masterminds Who Used Their Powers For Good

Kaminsky had just the trick. With lactic acid, he could erase ink from documentation without leaving a trace, and then write in whatever he wanted. At 18, he became the Resistance's youngest forger, and quickly thereafter, he also became their best. With the help of expert illustrators like Suzy Schidlof, he could forge 30 documents per hour, helping up to 500 people gain new identities every week.

With that kind of skill, Kaminsky could have made a fortune on the black market. But he refused to be paid for his heroics. He also refused to sleep most days, feeling guilty whenever he wasn't working. That's not a problem we can relate to, but then, we're not forcing two dozen people to risk death every time we skip writing a list to play Star Control.

By the time the Nazis were driven out of Paris, Kaminsky had saved the lives of at least 14,000 Jewish men, women, and children. He was given every French medal under the sun (which he doesn't like to talk about), and his skills were so good the French secret service put him to use making forgeries for their spies. Then in the '60s, he left behind his comfortable life in France to travel the world and forge documents for people fleeing other dictatorships -- free of charge, of course.

Robbins grew up in a family of thieves, but because a childhood disability messed with his fine motor skills, he could only watch as his brothers picked pockets at the zoo. But all that careful observation led Robbins to discover the true secret of masterful pickpocketing: If you can read how a person thinks, you can misdirect them with such precision that no Rolex is safe, regardless of any physical limitations.

Robbins has since rolled Charles Barkley for all the money in his pockets, lifted Jennifer Garner's engagement ring off her finger, and robbed President Jimmy Carter's Secret Service agents blind. He's so good that he even stole from famous magician duo Penn and Teller, removing Penn Jillette's ink cartridge out of his pen ... while he was writing with it. Robbins managed to turn his skills into a million-dollar business. His Vegas shows sell out in seconds, and he's also big in Hollywood, where he's paid the big bucks to advise on crime capers, teaching the likes of Will Smith and Margot Robbie the art of convincing petty theft.

He also teaches classes to law enforcement on how to spot and stop pickpockets. Though he probably doesn't teach them all of his tricks, because as he notes, a good pickpocket will always ask "Am I being paid enough to give it back?"

Wilson further collaborated in the writing of several scientific papers with Dr. Frank Stajano, professor of security and privacy at the University of Cambridge. And he helped create a fraud forum called SAFER, where he and other noble hucksters share their knowledge and experience for the benefits of rubes all across the globe. (He doesn't call them rubes, though -- rubes don't like that.)

With their impressive skill set, they've worked as cybersecurity experts for big players like Twitter, Uber, and even the NSA. But the two former work buddies like to meet up on occasion in their free time and dabble in a bit of charity (i.e. taking a wrecking ball to irresponsible car companies).

In 2015, the duo released a video in which they remotely took over a Cherokee Jeep by easily hacking into its onboard entertainment system through a cellphone network. Fortunately, the incident didn't end in some sort of real-life death race. All they chose to do was mess with the air conditioning, slow the car to a crawl, and blast Skee-lo's hit song "I Wish" -- not realizing that forcing someone to relive a '90s-era family road trip like that is a crime in itself.

When Fiat Chrysler was confronted with this terrible security flaw, they did what any car company would do: They pretended it wasn't that big of a deal. But some mild nudging from the government convinced the company to recall 1.4 million vehicles and create a patch to prevent any nutcase with a laptop from remotely driving a car off a bridge. A happy ending, right? Not really. Just a year later, the pair once again launched an attack on the same system to prove it still wasn't completely safe. And to absolutely make sure companies were kept on their toes, they also published a million dollars' worth of hacking tools online for free. Because they know that the only reliable corporation is one that is constantly under attack.

Marvin may not be a master lottery decoder, but he has a Twitter which he puts to good use.

E. Reid Ross has a couple books, Nature is the Worst: 500 reasons you'll never want to go outside again and Canadabis: The Canadian Weed Reader, both available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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