My favorite thief? We should all have a favorite thief, right? As Bob Dylan once sang, "You must be honest to live outside the law."
Ok. I will go with Jean Genet. Orphan, poet, writer, spent lots of time in prison. Sprung by Jean Paul Sartre. Genet wrote his first novel on toilet paper in prison. It was destroyed by one of the prison guards. Genet just wrote the whole thing again. That's determination.
Genet - favorite thief!