den of thieves

1. A group of people engaged in or suspected of illegal, immoral, or underhanded activities. Our state's economy is never going to recover as long as we've got this den of thieves running the show. I'm not surprised to hear that the police raided that club again—it's run by a den of thieves! Listen, I don't want you involved with that den of thieves or any of their illegal activities.

2. A place in which such activities take place or are suspected. A: "I just heard that FlemCorp is being accused of embezzling nearly half a billion dollars!" B: "Are you surprised? Everyone knows that place is a den of thieves." That place has always been a den of thieves, so steer clear unless you want a criminal record. I thought we were just gonna play poker. I didn't know the place was a den of thieves on the verge of being busted!

den of thieves, a

A group of individuals or a place strongly suspected of underhanded dealings. This term appears in the Bible (Matthew 21:13) when Jesus, driving the moneychangers from the Temple, said, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.” Daniel Defoe used the term in Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, and by the late eighteenth century it was well known enough to be listed with other collective terms such as “House of Commons” in William Cobbett’s English Grammar in a discussion of syntax relating to pronouns.