Man sentenced to 10 years in prison for major Pokémon card heist

Pokémon-related crime is on the rise, but as of June 29, so is pocket monster justice. A 36-year-old man from Wilmington, North Carolina, was sentenced this week to more than 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to a $21,000 Pokémon card heist from January.

According to a report from WECT News and North Carolina District Attorney James W. Smith, surveillance footage from Video Game Time, a local video game shop, revealed that a man named Joseph Trevor Wilson pepper sprayed and tied up a store employee before fleeing the scene. Wilson was allegedly carrying a gun, which he used to make off with both the Pokémon cards and cash from the store. Wilson was arrested five days later during a traffic stop where authorities also discovered a B.B. pistol and drugs.

Smith said that Wilson was carrying a notebook with a figure of “a Pokémon symbol” drawn on the calendar date corresponding to the robbery. Wilson apparently wrote the word “payday” on this segment of the calendar. He pleaded guilty to robbery with a dangerous weapon, second-degree kidnapping, possession of cocaine, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

As for the cards, they were recovered after two different men attempted to sell them to a video game store in Fayetteville. Wilson claimed that he went through with the robbery in an attempt to pay off a debt to the two undisclosed men.

The North Carolina incident is one of many recent robberies motivated by the high resale prices Pokémon cards can command. On Tuesday, a 27-year-old man and his 69-year-old father were robbed of $150,000 worth of Pokémon cards and $12,000 in cash after vending at a hobby showcase. The duo were apparently in a parking lot and in the middle of packing up their inventory when two men came up to them and allegedly threatened them with a gun. A month before that, another man was accused of using a chainsaw to steal Pokémon cards as well.

The case is still under investigation. Situations like these and the ongoing scalping problem have presumably prompted The Pokémon Company to adopt stricter measures to obtain its TCG products.