“I’m a businessman,” he’d told her. “No more, no less.”  

“You’re a thief, Kaz.”  

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

This quote appears in Chapter 2, as Inej recalls a conversation that helped form her early impressions of Kaz Brekker. In many ways, Six of Crows explores the blurred lines between criminals like Kaz (and the rest of the Dregs) and legitimate members of society. Kaz well knows that his “business activities” are illegal, but he also perceives that Ketterdam’s powerful merchants are just as corrupt as the street gangs that dominate the Barrel. Although the heist itself is highly illegal, Kaz and his team of criminals expose the corruption of many facets of legitimate society. For example, the merchant Van Eck turns out to be the villain of the story, and the honorable drüskelle turn out to be a murderous hate group. In the world of the novel, crime and business are indeed hard to distinguish.