Money, or other reward, obtained by dishonest means, is known as Ill-gotten Gains. The phrase first appeared in the early 1500s, applied to the pirates of the English coastline and their loot. The idiom in use today has been shortened from the original: "Ill-gotten gains never prosper." Shakespeare, in 1592, popularised the phrase in Henry VI Part 3 with the line "Didst thou never hear that things ill got had ever bad success?"