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Up until someone started using bear spray on unsuspecting victims trying to sell their Pokémon trading cards online, Vancouver police say they weren’t aware of a recent spike in interest in card collecting.
Staff Sgt. Ryan Campbell says thefts occurred on five consecutive days from March 23, with victims saying they were bear-sprayed and robbed after arranging meetings on Facebook Marketplace.
Campbell says officers arranged a sting operation by posting a card for sale online and meeting the suspect in person.
He says the suspect, who is in his 20s and is believed to have acted alone, was taken into custody on March 27 without incident.
Experts say the value of trading cards — Pokémon cards in particular — has increased significantly. CBC’s Talia Ricci breaks down how the trend has led to a sharp rise in value and more thefts.
Campbell says police recovered two cards, valued at about $2,000 together, while the combined value of the stolen cards is about $6,000.
Campbell says police will be recommending at least four charges of robbery in the case.
He says the investigation is ongoing, and the suspect has been released with conditions.
Police say that in each robbery, someone contacted the sellers online and arranged a meeting in a public space, where the sellers were bear-sprayed after being asked to produce their cards for inspection.
Campbell told a news conference on Thursday that there has been a rise in Pokémon card thefts in the Lower Mainland, but the phenomenon wasn’t on police radars until recently.
“You know, I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m really unfamiliar with Pokémon cards up until now.”
Shop burglaries
Some rare Pokémon cards sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, with influencers like Logan Paul getting in on the act. Paul recently sold a rare Pikachu Illustrator card for $16 million US.
A spate of robberies targeting collectible card shops in the Lower Mainland has led to stores ramping up security.
Brandon Chreptyk, the owner of House of Cards in Abbotsford, saw his store burgled in early March.
Police in Surrey and Abbotsford are investigating a pair of similar break and enters. The target wasn’t jewelry or cold hard cash — it was Pokemon cards. As CBC’s Jon Hernandez reports, an increase in popularity has made the cards more valuable and thieves have taken note.
He said he’s put in at least $40,000 in security measures since and a security guard is posted outside at night.
“The eyes on Pokémon, specifically these days, is so big. It’s in its 30th year,” he said.
“There’s tons of celebrities and influencers that are involved in the hobby and they really pump up the, like, the glorious side.”
Chreptyk says, however, that most people that collect the cards are knowledgeable and store owners are usually able to sniff out when someone is trying to unload stolen merchandise on them.
Chreptyk even said that one of the victims of the alleged Vancouver robber reached out to House of Cards to tell them to be on the lookout for their stolen card.
“We’ve, like, essentially confiscated collections — where people … come in with something, their story does not make sense. We’ll call the police quickly and just pretend, like, we’ll just, like, slow roll them,” the store owner said.
He advised those looking to sell their cards online to treat them like the valuable items they are, and try to perform the transactions entirely online and ship them, instead of meeting in person.
“If you were selling Rolexes, you wouldn’t meet someone on the street, [if] you’re selling like jewelry or something,” he said.
“Like, it’s kind of getting to that point with some of the expensive high-end cards.”
Keith Wong, who co-owns the Team Collectors trading shop in Richmond, said that the VPD came to the store two days prior and showed them two cards that were missing, saying the alleged thief had sold them to the store.
“We took a loss for the shop, but we’re happy and fortunate that the original owners got it back because it was theirs to begin with,” he said.
