Pokemon Collectors Callout Police Over 'Improperly' Recovered Cards
These days, people will do anything to get their hands on Pokemon cards. The collectibles have been center stage with fans and resellers alike for years. As interest in Pokemon cards rose over the past few years so too have the number of crippling TCG thefts. Normally, the fans are thrilled when these thieves are caught, but authorities in Japan just riled up collectors for catching the bad guys after they damaged the stolen cards.
According to SoraNews24, the whole thing came to light recently after the Yamanashi Prefectural Police announced a recent victory. The group told the public it had taken suspects into custody regarding a couple of card store burglaries. To show off their work, the police posted photos of the valuable Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards recovered, but the images sent diehard collectors into a frenzy.
As you can see here, some of the cards are displayed neatly in line and with protective covers. Sadly, the same cannot be said for most of the recovered cards. If you look, the video shows another table filled with uneven card stacks. They are being held together with then rubber bands, and after seeing this video, Pokemon fans flooded the police department's comments with notes.
"Please take better care of those cards," one netizen wrote. Another added in, "What are they going to do if a valuable card is damaged before they return it to the shop it was stolen from?"
Eventually, the Yamanashi Prefectural Police penned a statement about the whole controversy. It was there the team said the cards were only stored in rubber bands while the photos were being taken. "As the confiscated items are evidence, we need to make sure they are kept together. We have to keep them in groups of a set quantity, and so we wrapped them with rubber bands during the display," a spokesperson for the police shared. "We honestly didn't expect to be criticized for this, and we need to let this be a learning experience by which to see the need of considering many different aspects."
For the card shops stolen from, the Yamanashi police did work hard to find their thieves, so kudos are certainly due to the detectives. Hopefully, local criminals will think twice before testing these authorities with more card thefts. But if they do, well – you can be sure the Yamanashi Prefectural Police will have card binders waiting in the wings for evidence processing.
What do you think about this latest Pokemon theft case...? Let us know what you think in the comments below as well as on Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me up @MeganPetersCB to share your take!