I am immensely pleased to have been recently informed of the existence of
The Forty Elephants, a all-female ring of Victorian jewel thieves led by one Alice Diamond, a.k.a. Diamond Annie or the Queen of the Forty Thieves.
The gang would use the voluminous clothing of the day for women to hide their shoplifting. They were reputed to be the equal of the same number of men in battle. They established and held turf that required other operators to pay a percentage. They apparently operated for decades under an amicable succession of leaders, with reliable reports spanning at least seventy or eighty years. So successful were they that several supported idle trophy husbands.