Pokemon game cards are popular with children and teens and often collected and traded. Visible cards include Sharpedo, Kabuto and Spearow. Photo / Getty Images
By Ke-Xin Li of RNZ
Trading cards like Pokémon have become serious business, straddling the worlds of gaming and high-value investment.
Originally created in 1996 for competitive play and on sale for approximately a dollar per card, the most expensive card has since sold for a staggering US$5,275,000 ($8.7m).
And soaring collectible value has turned the cards into targets for theft and fraud.
Liam O’Neill, managing director of Hobby Lords, said they had to beef up security to protect staff after one worker was recently stabbed in a robbery.
“Each of our stores in this industry has more money [stock value] than jewellery stores. We have to look like jewellery stores with security and alarms, and all bells and whistles.”
And while the burglary is now before the courts, O’Neill said the theft of Pokémon cards was not being taken seriously enough by police.
“Police are under-resourced, understaffed, and that’s causing part of the problem that they don’t have the resources to investigate these crimes.
“But when it comes to the punishment levels versus jewellery stores, cigarettes, ram raids, do I think the punishment [for card thefts] is lesser than those? Yes, 100 per cent. I don’t think it’s been taken seriously.”
But police deny this, saying they treat all the reports of fraud or theft the same.
In a statement, Superintendent Blair Macdonald, director for service said: “Police treat reports of fraud or theft the same – it doesn’t matter what has been stolen or defrauded, or from what type of community. Police conduct an initial assessment for any matter reported to us, which considers a number of factors in determining whether it will be investigated. This is not based on monetary values.”
Trading cards first became popular in the ’90s. With Pokémon cards, the game Magic: The Gathering was particularly hot at the moment.
O’Neill said one of his customers lost around $25,000 worth of Magic: The Gathering cards when their home was burgled in early January. Two weeks later, a woman walked into O’Neill’s store attempting to trade them.
Staff instantly recognised the cards and made multiple calls to police while trying to keep the woman in store for 90 minutes.
O’Neill said the 90-minute wait for police was a disruption for the business as they discreetly asked other customers to leave, and the woman began behaving aggressively after they told her they knew the cards were stolen.
Police confirmed they had arrested someone in relation to the burglary and have returned stolen items to the victim.
Scams are also widespread within the trading card community, O’Neill said.
“We had a person I know personally stole at least $10,000 worth of stuff from scamming. We had her address, we had a bank account number, we had everything which has been presented to the police, and nothing’s ever happened to them.”
Macdonald told RNZ they had not identified it as a particular issue of concern, but they encouraged victims of this type of offence to report it.
“Aside from enabling us to investigate if appropriate, it also helps us to build a picture of offending and understand any trends, which in turn can help us more effectively target our response.”
Collector Peter Johnson believed the increase in crime was because of increased publicity over the potential value of trading cards.
“Over the last two years, there has been a small influx of theft going on as the community has seen the value in Pokémon and sees an increase in your investment over a short period of time. So that’s definitely interested a lot of people that are outside of the hobby.”
He had been collecting Pokémon cards since they first launched in 1996.
In the past month, his Umbreon VMAX card – currently valued at $3500 – had been stolen twice at trading events.
The first time, Johnson recovered the card after alerting the trading card community. It was taken by a 10-year-old boy and later returned by his apologetic parents.
But two weeks later, it was stolen again and was still missing.
“It hurts and it’s sad, but it’s motivated me more to be more alert. This weekend just gone, I’ve put up a tripod and a camera and filmed the whole event.”
Card Merchant Westcity store manager Marshall Stevenson had also seen an increase in shoplifting.
He suspected much of it was carried out by parents trying to fulfil their children’s wish list.
“Any time we hear about particularly valuable collections or a particular card that have ended up being sold within our local area, most of our industry is aware of the situation and will keep an eye out for that sort of thing.
“Hopefully, someone will be able to come across it at some point, but I don’t hear many of them ever showing up again. A lot of people are able to sell overseas.”
- RNZ