An Anaheim trading cards shop has become the latest victim in a string of burglaries at businesses that sell valuable collectibles, including Pokémon cards.
According to security camera video exclusively obtained by NBC Los Angeles, a group of men broke into a business earlier this week to eventually to get to Duy’s Collectibles, a card shop next door on Harbor Boulevard.
The burglars appeared to know exactly what they were after: cameras inside an insurance company show the men breaking into the business but didn’t take anything from the insurance firm. Instead, they took a sledgehammer and broke right through the drywall into Duy’s Collectibles.
“When I heard the notification on my phone my heart was pounding,” Duy Pham, the owner of Duy’s Collectibles, said. “As soon as I see the alarm, I click on it on the footage. The live footage shows someone coming through the hole right there.”
The gaping hole in Pham’s drywall is how the three masked men broke into his collectibles shop at 3 a.m. Tuesday.
Pham’s nine security cameras captured the men working quickly through the store, grabbing several hundred Pokémon cards.
“They took a lot of smaller single cards,” Pham said. “Those add up a lot.”
The men were in and out of his store in less than two minutes, Pham said, walking out of the shop with $180,000 worth of Pokémon cards.
“In this business, we have a target on our backs where we cannot sleep well at night. Sooner or later we’re going to get a break-in,” Pham said. “I feel we work very hard just to build this small community as a hobby that we love. It’s very sad when something like that happened.”
Outside cameras captured the burglars getting away in a dark-colored older model Honda.
Anaheim investigators said they are working a number of leads.