Armed robbers targeted a Manhattan Pok\u00e9mon shop this week in a heist that was unsurprising to trading-card fanatics, who say merchandise from the franchise has exploded in value and is being tracked by criminals.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday evening, three masked and hooded men, including one armed with a handgun, walked into the Pok\u00e9 Court shop in Chelsea, an NYPD spokesperson said. One of them smashed display cases with a hammer and stole what the owner of the shop said is more than $120,000 worth of merchandise.<\/p>\n
Courtney Chin, the store owner, said the robbery was unfortunate for her business, but not entirely surprising given a recent rise in interest in the cards \u2014 including among criminals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like a rite of passage as a card shop. You just get robbed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pok\u00e9mon trading cards and other collectibles associated with the Japanese media franchise have exploded in popularity in recent years, according to Matt Quinn, the vice president of CGC cards, a company that certifies trading cards. An auction company is currently offering a Pikachu illustrator card that influencer Logan Paul has worn around his neck for nearly $6 million, Quinn noted.<\/p>\n
And while the demand for cards featuring Charizard and Blastoise has grown, so has the threat of robbery and other crime in the industry, he added.<\/p>\n
A rise in popularity<\/p>\n
Chin, 35, said she opened a Pok\u00e9mon shop in Manhattan two years ago after deciding to make her collecting hobby a full-time job. Her store moved locations recently and was hosting its first in-person arts-and-crafts event Wednesday when the robbers struck, she said.<\/p>\n
The store was packed with collectors in their 20s and up when the three masked men stormed inside, she said. \u201cThere are zero children in the store,\u201d Chin said.<\/p>\n
People around Chin\u2019s age are part of what is driving an influx of cash into the Pok\u00e9mon trading business, Quinn said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have people like my age, I\u2019m 42,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of people my age are starting to come into better jobs, making more money and they want these cards they could never have or afford when they were kids. It just becomes this collecting frenzy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quinn said his company has seen an astronomical rise in Pok\u00e9mon’s popularity in recent years.<\/p>\n
He said his company certifies \u2014 or grades \u2014 about 25,000 trading cards per day, and most of them are Pok\u00e9mon cards.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe amount of submissions we\u2019ve been getting has just been drastically increasing over the last year and-a-half,\u201d Quinn said.<\/p>\n
Threat of crime<\/p>\n
The NYPD did not comment on whether there has been an uptick in robberies targeting Pok\u00e9mon cards and other collectibles. But Wednesday\u2019s robbery is not out of the ordinary.<\/p>\n
In November, a thief stole nearly $10,000 worth of Pok\u00e9mon and sport cards from a SoHo store owned by football great Tom Brady, the NYPD said at the time.<\/p>\n
In 2024, federal prosecutors in New York charged a man with wire fraud for allegedly scamming buyers of Pok\u00e9mon and sports cards out of $2 million.<\/p>\n
The defendant in that case, Anthony Curcio, misrepresented the grade cards had received and sold them at inflated prices, according to federal prosecutors. He pleaded not guilty and is currently on trial.<\/p>\n
Quinn said collectors should treat high-value cards the same way they\u2019d treat diamonds or other valuables. He said his office in Sarasota, Florida, is guarded by armed security guards and features a casino-level surveillance system.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always have to be vigilant when you\u2019re carrying collectibles,\u201d he said. \u201cThese little pieces of cardboard can be worth millions. People know that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Armed robbers targeted a Manhattan Pok\u00e9mon shop this week in a heist that was unsurprising to trading-card fanatics,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-103357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}