{"id":367715,"date":"2026-06-19T22:27:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T22:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/367715\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T22:27:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T22:27:19","slug":"2-stores-targeted-in-pokemon-card-burglaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/367715\/","title":{"rendered":"2 stores targeted in Pok\u00e9mon card burglaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Northern California stores were burglarized and had thousands of dollars worth of Pok\u00e9mon trading cards stolen within hours of each other this week, according to police and the stores’ owners.<\/p>\n

Investigators in Stockton are looking for clues and suspects in the Wednesday burglaries, which have become the latest incidents<\/a> in a string of Pok\u00e9mon card thefts across the country.<\/p>\n

\"Mario<\/p>\n

Mario Tama\/Getty Images, FILE – PHOTO: In this Jan. 23, 2026, file photo, collectible Pokemon cards are viewed in a store in Pasadena, Calif.<\/p>\n

Police do not immediately know if the two burglaries are connected.<\/p>\n

The first incident took place at Dragon’s Den Games around 1:55 a.m. local time when a hooded suspect broke a glass display case and made off with the cards in under a minute, according to police and surveillance footage.<\/p>\n

Pok\u00e9mon heists point to high demand for collectible cards<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom Douglas, the store’s owner, told ABC affiliate KXTV<\/a> that the thief was only looking for one thing in his store.<\/p>\n

“They’re looking for Pok\u00e9mon [cards],\u201d Douglas said. \u201cThey’re not interested in board games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around 3:30 a.m. a suspect, who was also wearing a similar black hood, broke into JNA Collectibles on Fremont Street, roughly three-and-a-half miles away from Dragon’s Den Games, according to police and surveillance footage.<\/p>\n

JNA Collectible’s owner, Joshua Lawson, told KXTV that the suspect used a crowbar to break through the front door, smash a glass display case with the Pok\u00e9mon cards and flee the scene with the cards in just a minute.<\/p>\n

“In one minute, I lost thousands of dollars,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Mario<\/p>\n

Mario Tama\/Getty Images, FILE – PHOTO: In this jan. 23, 2026, file hpoto collectible Pokemon cards are viewed in a store in Pasadena, Calif. A<\/p>\n

Lawson noted Pok\u00e9mon cards can range in value from about a dollar to tens of thousands of dollars for some graded cards. There have been similar thefts<\/a> in California, New Jersey and other states.<\/p>\n

“This is a problem for every single store in this area,” Lawson said.<\/p>\n

Thieves steal $15,000 worth of Pok\u00e9mon cards from California store in under 40 seconds: Police<\/a><\/p>\n

Douglas told the affiliate that the ongoing thefts are one of the reasons he’s decided to close Dragon’s Den Games at the end of the month after nearly a decade of business.<\/p>\n

He said the store has been burglarized four times since January.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is brand new this year,\u201d Douglas said. \u201cIt kind of feels like it came out of nowhere.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Northern California stores were burglarized and had thousands of dollars worth of Pok\u00e9mon trading cards stolen within…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,87833,149129,149127,86458,28993,149126,149128],"class_list":["post-367715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-collectible-cards","tag-glass-display-case","tag-joshua-lawson","tag-pokemon-card","tag-pokemon-cards","tag-pokemon-trading-cards","tag-tom-douglas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367715","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=367715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}