Thieves will try anything to get ahead these days, including stealing valuable Pokémon cards from The Pokémon Company. The price of valuable cards has gone up in recent years, with specific rare cards being valued in the hundreds of dollars, and even more in some cases. But a recent theft of a large assortment of rare Fusion Strike cards is causing waves within the Pokémon trading card game scene. Some are even going as far as to call it the largest theft of valuable Pokémon Cards in history.

Fans of the trading card game first got wind of everything from various posts on a Reddit posting (by Reddit user GuavaWave). Details about the heist started to circulate when people realized what had happened. Allegedly, a worker from a printing company had stolen a bunch of cards from the latest set and began offloading them to interested parties.

From the photos shared on the Reddit post, users on the forums estimated the display of cards to be thousands of dollars in stolen cards. The photo included cards that were highly sought after. including full art trainer cards, VMAX versions of Espeon, Gengar, and Mew; as well as other cards from the set. Many of these cards are highly valuable because of the Pokémon TCG community notes how difficult it can be to pull some of the cards out of booster packs and boxes. For some, the new set is said to have some of the worst pull rates in comparison to other sets for the Pokémon trading card game.

The thief in question tried to sell a portion of the cards to a local shop named Trading Card World, only to grow suspicions about everything. When the shop asked about the cards and where the seller got them, the alleged thief stated they worked for The Pokémon Company. This prompted the store to reach out to The Pokémon Company about it, to which they launched their own investigation and were able to recover the stolen cards in question. According to them, it was the largest amount of stolen cards returned to date.

One poster on Reddit gave their input on the news and shared the posting on the Pokémon World Facebook group, prior to the post getting deleted. “If anyone wants to know why fusion strike had no hits… apparently an employee at the printing facility stole all the hits which are pictured below and tried to sell them to TCW. So here are everyone’s hits from FS. Apparently, Pokémon came and picked them all up. Not sure what they did with all of the hits though. Crazy to see all of this.” Another user on the same Reddit post hoped that justice would eventually be served. “If this is true, hope he got jail time. Ruined god knows how many people’s day, legit scumbag.”

Trading Card World published its own statement on the matter to its followers on Facebook. “…the seller explained his connection to the source and TCW immediately contacted Pokémon Corp through the proper channels. The information was sent up the corporate ladder given the seriousness of the situation. A high-ranking Pokémon official contacted TCW… Pokémon Corp acknowledged Trading Card World for their critical contribution to the recovery of these stolen items. It was the largest return of stolen property to date… Trading Card World was asked to keep this information confidential while an active investigation was underway. With respect to that request, TCW has kept this story and their important involvement out of the spotlight.”

Since everything was shared, the Pokémon Company has not released an official statement on the matter. Whether the thief in question was caught afterward or held accountable for their crime is also unknown. There is an active investigation still going on.

Are you shocked by the news of this Pokémon Trading Card theft? Are you a fan of the Pokémon TCG and collecting any of the card sets? Share your thoughts down below in the comments and let us know!