Carmen Sandiego

Carmen Isabella Sandiego is a fictional character featured in a long-running edutainment series of the same name. As a criminal mastermind and the elusive nemesis of the ACME Detective Agency, Sandiego is the principal villain of the series and head of ACME's rival organization V.I.L.E. Most of her crimes involve spectacular and often impossible cases of theft. Her full name, according to Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge, is Carmen Isabella Sandiego.

Carmen Sandiego is almost always portrayed as a hispanic woman with a red trench coat, a matching fedora and long brown hair, although her hair color was given to be "auburn" or "black" in some of the earliest games. Her fedora is often shown leaving her face in shadow and obscuring her eyes. When her eyes are visible, they are usually brown, although they were blue in Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? and in Carmen Sandiego Math Detective. In many appearances she also wears gray or black glove.

In the original Brøderbund games and in all the TV shows, she wore a yellow or orange dress under her trench coat, with a matching stripe on her fedora, and red high-heeled shoe (best recognized in this outfit) She also seemed to have a flair for elegance, often wearing jewelry. However, in the games created under The Learning Company, her appearance was retooled so that she wore a grayish black catsuit under her trench coat, with the stripe on her fedora changed to match, and more practical footwear.

In most Carmen Sandiego media, it is stated or implied that the title thief steals only for the challenge of it, although some of her V.I.L.E. minions seem to be more traditionally motivated. She often describes her schemes and the user/protagonists attempts to stop them as being a game, which they ironically are, regularly gloating that she is impossible to capture or that her plans are infallible and acting as though any efforts made against her are extremely trivial. Sometimes, she asserts that it is impossible for anyone to understand her or her motives and seems to revel at how difficult she can make it for anyone trying to figure her out.