In popular fiction, a thieves' guild is a formal association of criminals who participate in theft-related organized crime.
The trope has been explored in literature, cinema, comic books, and gaming, such as in the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story "Thieves' House" by Fritz Leiber[citation needed] and the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
Though these more modern works are fictitious, the concept is inspired by real-world examples from history, such as Jonathan Wild and his gang of thieves.
[1] Some stories of One Thousand and One Nights celebrated artful thieves and criminal brotherhoods with a hierarchy and code of honor.
[2] This was based on actual thieves' guilds in Cairo in the Ottoman period, that were known to return stolen goods for a price, and which were managed by a sheikh.