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Trading Card Game Shop Catches Pokémon Card Thieves on Security Camera

A group of Pokémon card thieves prepared for trouble and made it double. According to a report from ABC7 News last Friday, Tofu's Trading, a store in San Jose, California, shared camera footage of what appear to be a trio of robbers breaking into the store on January 24 at 2:00 a.m. The robbers took over 35,000 Pokémon cards, with many of them worth hundreds of dollars each in the second-hand market. The catch is, many of the cards they stole were worth almost nothing. On top of not seeming to know what exactly to steal, the robbers also did not seem to realize that the new "Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Paldean Fates" set full of potentially expensive singles was launching that very Friday. While the incident itself is still serious, Tofu's Trading staff found humor in the theives' Team Rocket-like behavior, adding "alert!" sound effects from the Metal Gear Solid games to their security footage.

Tofu's Trading store manager said, "A lot of stuff releasing this week and we thought it was funny, we were like, 'Oh, these people don't realize that [the new set, pictured right] releases on Friday, not like on Wednesday at 2 a.m. I don't think they were in for hobby necessarily because they didn't know what to take."

Although the police arrived at the scene later, they did not catch the thieves, who had already quickly left. The thieves also stole Weiss Schwarz and Magic the Gathering cards.

Store managers are clearing the glass cases of cards and securing them, which is a precaution they had already taken prior to the robbery. The store is sharing the footage, not just as a public service announcement to other game shops, but also to see the humor within the stressful situation. For now, even though the thieves have gotten away, Tofu's Trading lost nothing of actual worth. For them, it looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again!

Sources: ABC7 News (Lauren Martinez), Tofu's Trading's Instagram page, IGN (Ryan Dinsdale)