![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/627b12a0be8f571d2df99a2f132d193d.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nPolice are investigating after a Canberra trading cards store was robbed, with the owner saying he believes products valued at about $150,000 were taken.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Collectors Colloseum, located on the Australian National University campus, was “ransacked” overnight, police said.<\/p>\n
Officers were called to the store about 2:30am.<\/p>\n
Store owner Ben Pye said he had been up late working and was just drifting off to sleep when his phone alerted him that the alarm had been triggered.<\/p>\n
“Obviously my heart stopped,” he said.<\/p>\n
Police were called to the store about 2:30am. (ABC News: Toby Hunt)<\/p>\n
He said he believed the burglar had left with “up to 60-100 graded cards” and “a handful of single cards”.<\/p>\n
Graded trading cards have been professionally authenticated and are rated based on their condition.<\/p>\n
Pokemon cards are a major draw to the shop, but other types of trading cards are sold there.<\/p>\n
Mr Pye said the cards each had a unique serial number and had been increasing in value in recent years.<\/p>\n
“We have to treat this kind of shop kind of like a jewellery store because Pokemon cards are on such an increase and so rapidly \u2014 there’s no saying when that will stop,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They’re becoming more and more desirable and of course, petty crime, petty thieves start directing their attention more to stores like mine.”<\/p>\n
Burglar had a ‘difficult time’<\/p>\n
Despite the high-quality security system, Mr Pye said the burglar was able to get into the store, but had a “difficult time”.<\/p>\n
He said he was watching what was unfolding on his phone from home, via a security camera, and contacted police.<\/p>\n
“The burglar actually had such a difficult time getting in for such a long time, and that alarm is so loud, he freaked out, picked up his e-bike, rode around the block and came back like a minute or two later,” he said.![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2d29eb9dfdb92ef1c1624db2a3f27fe9.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The owner of Canberra Colloseum said the stolen cards had a combined value of $150,000. (ABC News: Toby Hunt)<\/p>\n
He said he believed it was on that second attempt that the burglar took the cards, before police arrived.<\/p>\n
Mr Pye said he was “frustrated” but was hopeful the large community of playing card collectors could help them track down the offender.<\/p>\n
He said he had made others aware of the serial numbers.<\/p>\n
“So long as we share those around, people are pretty quick to catch on at card shows or pawn shops,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Basically with imagery, videos, information that I’ve been able to provide everyone, we’ve had a few people come back and give us some indications of who they think it may be.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police are investigating after a Canberra trading cards store was robbed, with the owner saying he believes products…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[237241,2666,64,63,2667,92248,237240,48,134,5315,2668,346,1158,45388,70264],"class_list":["post-462264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-237241","tag-act","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canberra","tag-cards","tag-collectors-colloseum","tag-crime","tag-entertainment","tag-investigation","tag-local-stories","tag-pokemon","tag-police","tag-robbery","tag-stolen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}