A fence, also known as a receiver, mover, or moving man, is an individual who knowingly buys stolen goods in order to later resell them for profit. The fence acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may not be aware that the goods are stolen.
As a verb (e.g. "to fence stolen goods"), the word describes the behaviour of the thief in the transaction with the fence.
As is the case with the word fence and its derivatives when used in its other common meanings (i.e. as a type of barrier or enclosure, and also as a sport), the word in this context is derived from the word defence. Among criminals, the fence originated in thieves' slang tracing from the notion of such transactions providing a "defence" against being caught."Fence" in the Word Detective
Thieves who patronise fences are willing to accept a low profit margin in order to reduce their risks by instantly "washing their hands" of illicitly gotten loot (such as black market goods) and disassociating from the criminal act that procured it. After sales, fences recoup their investment by disguising the stolen nature of the goods (via methods such as repackaging and altering/effacing serial numbers) and reselling the goods as near to the market price as possible without drawing suspicion. This process often relies on a legal business (such as a pawnshop, flea market, or street vendor) in order to "launder" the stolen goods by intermixing them with legally-obtained items of the same type.
Fencing is illegal in all countries, but proving a violation of anti-fencing laws can be difficult.
History of receiving The fence, or receiver, is an old kind of criminal, historically attested in many countries, and with deep and complex dynamics within society.
Early modern England Receiving was a widespread crime in Modern England and a concern for the English government of that period. It involved many other kinds of activities and crimes, and it saw its peak in the early 18th century with the notorious Jonathan Wild. Receiving is intrinsically connected to theft, as receivers, by definition, buy previously stolen goods in order to make profit out of them later. When organised theft grew in London thanks to the support of receivers, the establishment started to fight it with new laws, often aimed at receivers: receiving was acknowledged as the core of property crime.
Receiving was not considered as a felony (crime) in common law until 1691, when fences became potential targets of charges as accessories to theft. This meant that in order to judge a suspected receiver, it was necessary to condemn the related thief first. Later laws further focused on receivers, especially the 1718 Transportation Act, which, together with other measures, made fences main felons and not simply accessories to other felonies. Nonetheless, it was not easy to prove that a dealer knowingly accepted stolen goods, especially without the related theft event being fully cleared out.Beattie, J. M. Crime and the Courts in England 1660–1800. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986, pp. 189–90. There are 5,892 proceedings stored in the Old Bailey Online archive where the offence category is receiving. Of these, 2,283 have a verdict category of guilty.Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, 19 April 2025), Searched Old Bailey Proceedings for all offences where offence category is receiving and verdict category is guilty.
The 1718 Transportation Act also criminalised returning goods for a fee, which reveals that by then, receiving had already been taken to the next stage: returning goods to their owner, for a fee, instead of selling them in the second-hand market. Thieves could in this way act as go-betweens themselves, but go-betweens could raise some suspicions, whereas relying on receivers added a safety layer against effective prosecution. A victim of theft was often willing to pay in order to get their goods back, in order to spare themselve further troubles and/or if the items taken had the potential to reveal unflattering details about their personal affairs. In addition to that, for many centuries, prosecution in England was entirely at the expense (of personal money, time, and effort) of the prosecutor.Beattie, J. M. Crime and the Courts in England 1660–1800. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986, pp. 41–48. Therefore, given the difficulty of actually proving receiving in courts, common people, especially shopkeepers,Beattie, J. M. Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750: Urban Crime and the Limits of Terror. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001, p. 250. often preferred compounding, feeling that prosecuting was not worth it. This gave a considerable advantage to receivers.
In order to effectively act as go-betweens for compounding, or brokerage, fences needed to personally know thieves or have ways to easily interact and bargain with them for a common benefit about compounding: nobody was in a better position to do so than thief-takers. Thief-takers grew increasingly notorious in England as a reward was introduced by the Crown for each successfully condemned criminal.Beattie, J. M. Crime and the Courts in England 1660–1800. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986, pp. 55–59. Some of them, such as Anthony Dunn, publicly referred to as "pretended Thiefe-taker" in a 1707 document,Beattie, J. M. Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750: Urban Crime and the Limits of Terror. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001, p. 251. used their social power as thief-takers as an advantage for receiving. Thief-takers were usually so involved with thieves and gangs of thieves that they could easily condemn them for the reward, or use this power to intimidate and command thieves to do their bidding. In exchange for clemency or protection from capture or condemnation, they could have thieves to steal under their command. Indeed, thief-takers could act as direct instigators, supporting their thieves with intelligence or offering them shelter at need (when convenient), and then acting as receivers with the stolen goods.Beattie, J. M. Crime and the Courts in England 1660–1800. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986, pp. 159–60. Through parallel occupations, receivers could feed their own business.
Confirmation of how thief-taking and receiving were tightly connected is demonstrated by the career of Charles Hitchen, who was known as a thief-taker. He bought off the position of Under City Marshal with his wife's money in order to have one of the best positions amongst the thief-takers of the City. However, a vast part of his income came from the receiving activity related to the network of connections with London's underworld. Hitchen controlled this network through his official (that is to say, legal) position as a thief-taker.Beattie, J. M. Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750: Urban Crime and the Limits of Terror. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001, pp. 253–254.
The synergy between receiving, theft, and corruption, as well as official activities such as thief-taking or pawnbroking was a where each element enhanced the others in a vicious circle.Beattie, J. M. Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750: Urban Crime and the Limits of Terror. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001, p. 232.
The master of this powerful synergy of London underworld was Jonathan Wild, who replaced his previous master, Charles Hitchen, in 1713, and gained control of London's crime and the title of "thief-taker general". His power was due to his ruthless thief-taking and intimidation activities as well as a complex web of intelligence also built around the diffusion of newspapers. However, overly bold receiving was his undoing,Beattie, J. M. Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750: Urban Crime and the Limits of Terror. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001, p. 381. as it provoked the English government to promote further laws against receiving and related activities, such as the Transportation Act in 1718, also known as "Jonathan Wild Act",Hitchcock and Schoemaker. Tales from the Hanging Court. London: Hodder Arnold, 2007, p. 20. and its extension in 1720, which made returning goods for a fee a felony of the same importance and punishment as the crime (theft) related to the goods returned (which meant a capital offence in most cases, with raised potential reward for definitive evidence, from £40 to £140).Beattie, J. M. Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750: Urban Crime and the Limits of Terror. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001, p. 39. Eventually, the government took direct action against Wild through lawyers, succeeding in condemning and executing him in 1725.
Women and receiving There is no registered case of female fences of the same fame of Wild or Hitchen. However, women had active roles in both receiving and theft.Kermode, and Walker. Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England. Chapel Hill London: U of North Carolina, 1994, p. 93. Elizabeth Hitchen gave her inheritance money to her husband Charles in order to buy the Under City Marshal office for his plans. Moreover, women could also be active fences. For example, Elizabeth Fisher managed her own receiving business in her husband's alehouse.Kermode, and Walker. Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England. Chapel Hill London: U of North Carolina, 1994, p. 92. a total of 6,638 proceedings were stored in the Old Bailey Online archive where the offence category is receiving. Of these, 2,250, slightly more than one-third, have a defendant gender category of female.Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, 19 April 2025), Searched Old Bailey Proceedings for all offences where offence category is receiving and defendant gender is female.
Early modern English literature The growth of the crime of receiving in Early Modern society, combined with the increasing interest of society on reading, led to depictions of the crime in the works of writers such as Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders and John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.
Moll Flanders The novel Moll Flanders narrates the whole life of its protagonist (Moll Flanders), but a relevant part of it is about her becoming a master thief. Moll's activity as a thief relied on the protection and support of her governess, who also acted as a receiver for the goods stolen by her affiliates. She is the one who buys Moll's stolen goods the first time, as Moll narrates "I was now at a loss for a market for my goods... At last I resolved to go to my old governess." The governess character sealed Moll's fate as a thief, and eventually taught her the basics of thievery, redirecting Moll to work with other senior thieves. Defoe shows how crucial as well as subtle receiving was in building the whole of crime activity in London.
The Governess is officially a pawnbroker, and she uses this legal business to also sell stolen goods. Sometimes, such as in the case of a silver inscribed mug stolen by Moll, she smelts metals, in order to avoid getting caught while re-selling. Along with receiving activity, she actively protects and supports many criminals and thieves in order to secure a steady income from her activity.
The same governess protects and offers refuge to her affiliates whenever possible, or recruits thieves into small groups, always via middlemen, in order to protect their thieves' identities in case some of them were caught and willing to confess.
She is also a main intelligence source and often a direct instigator to theft, such as in a case of fire in a well-off house in the neighbourhood (more vulnerable to theft because of the sudden emergency), and finally becomes a broker for goods stolen by Moll to a drunken gentleman. In that case, the amount gained is allegedly greater than what she would have gained by standard re-selling in the secondary market.The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. on Project Gutenberg, accessed on 23 November 2015.