{"id":187964,"date":"2026-02-21T22:28:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T22:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/187964\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T22:28:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T22:28:20","slug":"pokemon-bandits-tunnel-into-la-shop-and-make-off-with-nearly-200k-in-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/187964\/","title":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon bandits tunnel into LA shop and make off with nearly $200K in cards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pok\u00e9mon bandits tunneled into a Los Angeles collectible shop and made off with nearly $200K in cards in a brazen burglary in Anaheim.<\/p>\n<p>It happened in the early morning hours of Wednesday morning at DOWE Collectibles in the 1100 block of North Harbor Boulevard, the Anaheim Police Department told <a href=\"https:\/\/ktla.com\/news\/orange-county\/anaheim-pokemon-cards-theft-tunnel-burglary\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">KTLA<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators said suspects broke into one office and, using a sledgehammer, smashed through drywall and tunneled into the collectible card shop next door.<\/p>\n<p>Image of the smashed wall from the Pok\u00e9mon bandits. KTLA 5<\/p>\n<p>Security camera footage from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=906602758650765\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CBSLA<\/a> showed the suspects breaking into the shop through the wall before the masked thieves used sledgehammers to break display cases.<\/p>\n<p>The burglars made their way through the shop, smashing cases and filling up giant black bags of $180,000 worth of the cards, police said.<\/p>\n<p>The owner of the shop, Duy Pham, said when his phone alerted him to the break-in he could not believe what he was seeing.<\/p>\n<p>Surveillance footage showed the burglars stealing the valuable cards. KTLA 5<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI clicked on the footage and saw guys coming through the hole,\u201d Pham said. \u201cMy heart was pounding. I called 911 right away and rushed over here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The owner said the burglars didn\u2019t bother with electronics and focused only on the collectable cards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey didn\u2019t touch our computers or cameras,\u201d Pham said. \u201cThey were here for the cards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Video showed the destruction left of the shop. KTLA 5<\/p>\n<p>KTLA\u2019s video showed the damage in the wall and what the shop looked like after the break in.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>No arrests have been made, and police confirmed to KTLA that detectives are following up on leads in the case.<\/p>\n<p>Police did not immediately return calls from The Post. This is only the latest example of thieves breaking into collectible stores for the specialty cards.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In January, Merch-loving thieves stole a $300,000 set of Pok\u00e9mon cards and other collectibles in two robberies in Los Angeles-including a brazen caught-on-camera heist using an electric saw, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/05\/us-news\/watch-rare-pokemon-cards-stolen-in-la-heists\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Post<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>The Anaheim shop owner said there\u2019s been an increase in the value of the Pok\u00e9mon cards and pointed out how some are worth thousands of dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The owner said the increased value of the cards makes them a target. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne card can be worth up to $10,000,\u201d Pham told KTLA. \u201cPeople see the money is there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added, \u201cWe kind of expected something like this sooner or later. When you\u2019re in this business, you feel like you have a target on your back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon bandits tunneled into a Los Angeles collectible shop and made off with nearly $200K in cards in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,10038,47,4182,45196,3586],"class_list":{"0":"post-187964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-heists","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-metro","15":"tag-pokemon","16":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}