Thieves hit a shop in West Los Angeles on Sunday and took approximately $300,000 in Pokemon cards, the latest incident in which criminals have tried to “catch ’em all.”
Law enforcement believe the incident at RWT Collective in Sawtelle may have been linked to another such crime in Simi Valley, NBC Los Angeles reported Monday.
A customer of RWT Collective encountered the thieves as he was leaving and he was reportedly held at gunpoint in a parking garage. The cards, the NBC article said, were inside a briefcase.
Meanwhile, a similar theft happened at Simi Sportscards on Erringer Road where thieves broke in with a chainsaw. After smashing the display cases, the group fled with about $50,000 worth of cards.
Fox 11 video footage shows the Simi theft unfold as masked individuals broke glass on the display cases and quickly grabbed what they wanted:
Co-owner Jake Miller told the outlet, “This has been happening to a lot of local shops in L.A., Ventura counties. I mean, it just keeps happening.”
The Pokemon card thefts appear to be happening in other states. Game store owners in the Atlanta, Georgia, area said over $100,000 worth of the cards were stolen from several shops, KMTV reported December 10.
“Surveillance video from inside 1Up Games in Calhoun captured one of the thefts, in which someone took off with about $4,000 worth of cards. The video shows a man wearing a motorcycle helmet smash a glass case and stuff dozens of cards into a duffel bag. Some of the cards stolen were worth as much as $675 individually,” the outlet said.
More recently, law enforcement in Harris County, Texas, were trying to find thieves accused of breaking into a card shop in Cypress and making off with Pokemon cards, KHOU reported December 30, and a man in Spring, Texas, recently said his home was broken into and thieves stole hundreds of unopened Pokemon trading card packs that were worth nearly $100 each, per Fox 26.