Rare Pokemon cards are supposed to be, well, rare. That’s the point. It’s how Pokemon makes its money from 🌌the game: hooking players in with cute artwork or powerful cards and then keeping them coming back as they get FOMO when everyone on the internet seems to pull the full-art Umbreon or the rainbow rare Charizard but they don’t. There are no published pull rates, everyone just accepts that this is how trading card games work.
However, three large-scale thefts of high value Pokemon cards have been reported over the weekend. The f🧔irst was explained by Trading Card World on Facebook, which detailed its experience of someone approaching it to sell large quantities of highly sought-after cards. The quantities were so vast that the company, which buys and sells trading cards as well as running a Facebook group that facilitates the same, advised this 🐻person that the cards were likely fake or stolen. At which point, things got serious.
Trading Card World doesn’t go into detail, but it that, “the seller e🅷xplained his connection to the source.” At which point, TCW contacted The Pokemon Company to let them know the seriousness of the theft. The two companies worked together to recover the cards in what TCW calls “the largest return of stolen property to date.”
The cards in question were from the Fusion Strike set, and while Trading Card World doesn’t say when this ordeal took place, it admits that it was asked “to keep this information confidential while an active investigation was underway.” Considering Fusion Strike was released at the rear end of 2021, it sꦗeems likely that the well-connected thief was trying to palm off his stolen product not long after its release, while the cards were still in demand.
In the wake of this news, another player has come forward with a similar experience. While their im✅age cannot be corroborated, they posted a picture of dozens of Umbreon VMAX alternate art cards next to an equally stacked pile of Rayquaza alt arts, captioned, “It probably happened with [Evolving Skies], too.” That Umbreon sells for aroಌund £400, and Rayquaza around £250. The shows thousands, if not tens of thousands of pounds worth of cards. The user says that the image was sent to him by his sister’s friend, and many commenters suspect that the cards were stolen from the production line.
There’s a third similar post, too. Aﷺnother Pokemon card collector from a now-deleted Facebook post in a local Pokemon group in Texas, whereby someone allegedly tried to s🧸ell hundreds of Fusion Strike rainbow rares to their local gaming store. The user alleges that this is a printing company worker who stole hit cards off the line.
It’s unclear whether all of these allegations are true – some peoplཧe could be trying to flex or dupe with piles of fakes – but the Trading Card World story in particular stands out as the most likely, due to the apparent involvement of The Pokemon Company. However, the manufacturer has not officially commented on the matter. Is there a real-life Team Rocket running around stealing Pokemon cards? Did thieves deny you that lovely golden Mew from Celebrations?
Fans are understandably livid, commenters are claiming that they want to sue Pokemon for the lower rates of hits than there should have been. But that simply won’t work. There’s no guarantee of how many hits should be in a booster pack or Elite Trainer Box. TCG boosters🐼 aren’t regulated like loot boxes where compani💃es need to write the percentage chance of pulling a certain card on them. They’re soft gambling, and the chances of pulling that alt art you’ve got your eye on is just ‘slim’. You’ve got no guarantee of pulling anything good, and as your chances aren’t quoted beforehand, a few alleged missing sheets of rare cards doesn’t mean The Pokemon Company owes you compensation.
It is a bad look though, and awful PR for the TCG. Three huge allegations have cropped up in one weekend, and it seems likely that more will follow. Fusion Strik♏e had notoriously low hit rates, and fans are wondering if excessive thefts contributed to that.𒁏 The ill will surrounding the game is currently putting players off buying more, they want guarantees that all the cards printed are making it into their booster packs. Whether Pokemon will officially respond remains to be seen, but right now it seems like Pokemon has a very serious theft problem.