A shop in Gifu, specializing in selling Pokémon and One Piece trading cards, announced on July 23 that it had been robbed the previous night. According to its post on X, the store was forcefully broken into late at night, and much of the shop’s inventory is currently missing.
As they couldn’t identify the thief via security camera footage alone, the card shop’s manager decided to take to X to seek further information about the culprit. In a kind of online “witch hunt,” the card shop offered 1 million yen (about $6.1k USD) to whoever “captures and brings the robber alive.” Additionally, those who know any valuable information about the culprit can submit it for a reward of 50k yen (about $305 USD).
The post quickly went viral among Japanese users, mainly because of the huge bounty offered, with many amused by the slightly edgy wording of the post. Since the shop in question also operates as a buyer of trading cards, some users have been jokingly asking how much money they would offer if the culprit was “in a scratched condition.” Luckily, the shop management explained that the price will stay at a solid 1 million yen “as long as the culprit is breathing.”
With prices of Pokémon and One Piece trading cards soaring year after year, incidents like these have become even more common in Japan as resellers seek out rare and expensive cards. In a slightly bizarre case from last year, an owner of a Pokémon card shop was involved in stealing roughly $90k dollars’ worth of cards from another Pokémon card shop in the same neighborhood. In a more recent case, two thieves in Tokyo stole approximately $213k dollars’ worth of Pokémon cards, making roughly $34k dollars in profit after reselling part of them before their arrest.
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