Over $113k Worth Of Rare Pokémon Cards Stolen From Massachusetts Store

6 days ago

A brazen thief stole much than $113,000 worthy of Pokémon cards from a Massachusetts store, officials said Friday, launching a real-life Pokémon Go hunt for nan fishy and nan uncommon collectibles.

The break-in astatine 1st Edition Collectibles on Purchase Street successful New Bedford, astir 60 miles extracurricular downtown Boston, occurred conscionable aft 2:30 a.m. connected Tuesday, constabulary said. The thief "broke successful and stole respective high-value collectible items," New Bedford constabulary spokesperson Holly Huntoon said successful a statement.

No arrests had been made arsenic of precocious Friday morning.

"It sucks. I mean, you activity hard, and obviously, thing for illustration this happening is not a good" thing, shop co-owner Sean Vieira told NBC News. "But I mean, it's conscionable money. No 1 died. So, I mean, it's down to nan world."

Store owners placed nan nonaccomplishment astatine astir $113,650.

The stolen Pokémon cards are truthful uncommon and valuable that local collectors would beryllium capable to admit them connected nan market, Vieira said.

The shop had surveillance cameras, but constabulary person told owners not to disclose galore specifications of nan heist arsenic detectives proceed their search.

Nine summers ago, nan Pokémon Go smartphone app was released, sending fans of nan fictional Japanese characters into semi-virtual searches connected their section streets.

Now, Pokémon collectors tin thief hunt for these stolen cards similarly.

"It's decidedly 1 of those things that I would opportunity that's (the stolen merchandise) beautiful easy identifiable for sure," Vieira said.

"The cards person serial numbers, and nary boxes are nan same. So location are imperfections successful nan boxes that we could astir apt usage to identify, you know, nan nonstop one. Again, it's not a batch of them retired there," he added.