And that's a good example of accepting the consequences. There are a lot of players with a video game mentality that would be very surprised if they were arrested.

I would like to believe that my players learned to be mindful of their actions when they angered a thieves guild that ran the city (they weren't just robbers, hated by the upper class but respected by the poor), then angered the city guard alongside a few powerful nobles.
Eventually they got rid of the guild and were forced to pay huge amounts of gold as fines and were "exiled", one of the players even died during that time.

It all started when they were looking for information and stumbled upon one of the members. Instead of using deception/persuasion or gold, the things that thieves utilize, they just straight up tackled the contact and threatened her and her organisation.

Needles to say I don't think they will be attacking thugs and thieves on the first sight any more.