Accused thieves stole over $300,000 worth of collectible cards in the Los Angeles area, with one of the store owners saying the two cases could be related.
On Sunday night, a customer left the RWT Collective card store in the Sawtelle neighborhood of Los Angeles with a briefcase containing his personal Pokemon card collection worth at least $300,000.
The suspects, who had also been in the store, intercepted him in an underground parking garage and stole the briefcase at gunpoint, the store’s owners told KNBC-TV.
The store owners shared a picture of the accused thieves with the Los Angeles Police Department, and the victim told police that two men were the ones who stole his Pokemon cards, according to KABC-TV.
RWT Collective co-owner Christopher Chou told KABC that the store is “going to keep increasing our security systems, too. We’re going to get more cameras into the building, things like that.”
Earlier Sunday, Simi Sportscards in Simi Valley, 25 miles northwest of Sawtelle, was hit.
At around 3:38 a.m., suspects forcibly entered the store, setting off alarms, then broke display cases to take cards, the Simi Valley Police Department said.
The store’s owner, Jake Miller, told the New York Post that the five suspects cost him about $50,000 between the cards and the damages, saying, “I have a few cards in the $1,000 range, but this was about volume; they got it all.”
Mr. Miller also said he believes Sunday’s thefts were part of “an organized ring or multiple rings.”
Certain Pokemon cards, sports cards and other collectible cards are valuable due to their rarity or condition.
“Most of the time, they’re used, and they’re not in good enough quality to be considered collectible. And so when they do rise to a level, that’s when the dollar amount can really get to be something pretty out there,” RWT Collective co-owner Danny Leserman told KABC-TV.
