Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zaren Hey, Yes, over here.
Speaker 3: I wasn't napping.
Speaker 2: It's cool, it's fine.
Speaker 3: I was to my eyes were awake.
Speaker 2: It's my eyes are too small for this. You know
Speaker 2: it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. Thank god you asked me. Those over
Speaker 3: here just nap, not napping, waiting for you to ask
Speaker 3: me that you know the actor Oscar Isaac, Yeah, you
Speaker 3: like him podammer and in the Star Wars movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Also, uh was it but the cat and the in
Speaker 3: one of my there you go, Davis? Okay, so he's
Speaker 3: an actual, real musician. Yeah, not just.
Speaker 2: Llewell and Davis be saying on the on the soundtrack. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's good, He's really good.
Speaker 3: Did you know he used to be in bands?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You should see that. He was in SKA bands, waits sco.
Speaker 3: Bands with great names like Petrified Frogs and Closet Heterosexuals.
Speaker 3: Oh god, the worms.
Speaker 2: But also they're like fifteen people on stage?
Speaker 3: Is a sad Elizabeth answer. That question answers itself. So also,
Speaker 3: though he was successful as a ska band artist, he
Speaker 3: was the lead singer. In case you wanted wondering where
Speaker 3: he was not in like the horn section. Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: up front, knees up. Yeah. So uh. He actually opened
Speaker 3: for Green Day and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones when he
Speaker 3: was a member of the group The Blinking Underdogs.
Speaker 2: The Blinking Underdogs. The nineties were a wild time. I
Speaker 2: think everyone was in a SKA band, whether they knew
Speaker 2: it or not. That was in tune.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know.
Speaker 2: I found out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw pictures. I was like, what am I
Speaker 3: doing on stage? Later?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is ridiculous. I love that he was in
Speaker 2: a SKO band. But you know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 3: What else is religious? What else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Pokemon? Pokemon is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that yellow guy. Yeah totally.
Speaker 2: This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
Speaker 2: and cons It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 2: one hundred percent ridiculous. No, you heard that, that's right.
Speaker 2: The Yakuzas sarin Ah, Yes, my friends go on. It's
Speaker 2: a criminal organization. You didn't think would come up in
Speaker 2: our conversations about ridiculous crimes, not from you, No, well,
Speaker 2: not that they don't commit ridiculous crimes. They're just so murdery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough one because of all the kind of.
Speaker 2: Like the Italian and American mafias, or like outlaw biker gangs,
Speaker 2: which I love to talk about, but I can't love
Speaker 2: to hang out with. I love to be in one,
Speaker 2: but I you know, the Yakuza. I am going to
Speaker 2: talk to you about them today.
Speaker 3: I'm so curious how you're going to avoid this parts.
Speaker 2: Let's pretend that you've never heard of them. Okay, let
Speaker 2: me fill you in.
Speaker 3: Is this a boy band?
Speaker 2: I'm going a woman'splaining the Yakuza. Yes. So basically it's
Speaker 2: Japanese organized crime serena. Yeah. So the cops call them
Speaker 2: organized crime or violent groups is the term they use.
Speaker 2: They call themselves chivalrous organizations, gentlemen's club and like. For
Speaker 2: a while there they operated out of really well marked offices,
Speaker 2: and sometimes there were signs outside with the symbols of
Speaker 2: their trade.
Speaker 3: Japanese opera lovers.
Speaker 2: Like samurai swords or like a lantern, and like films
Speaker 2: cartoons made them out to be noble outlaws with his
Speaker 2: code of honor.
Speaker 3: The Yuza were talking about about them.
Speaker 2: Say it with me again. Yakuza yakuzza.
Speaker 3: They do jacuzzi, but it's a little more.
Speaker 2: Menacence adjacent jacuzzi adjacent Yakuza. They do have a very
Speaker 2: strict code, both for like hierarchy and for their conducts.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, I've heard this.
Speaker 2: And many of them, many of them have sick ass
Speaker 2: tattoos all over their bodies. I've also heard this just now,
Speaker 2: just learning this. But you can't see them because they
Speaker 2: wear sick ass suits.
Speaker 3: That's a good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They pull fraud, they run drugs and guns. They
Speaker 2: engage in human trafficking and murder for hire. It sounds
Speaker 2: like they have a large talk about it parties, a
Speaker 2: big one. Yeah, but you know, they also provide disaster
Speaker 2: relief after major earthquakes.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm just hearing about this now from you. This
Speaker 3: is interesting. It's like Fukushima you're talking about all.
Speaker 2: That's the thing about. Yeah, the mafia and outlaw biker gangs,
Speaker 2: like they do stuff that supports their communities while also
Speaker 2: doing things that destroy their communities.
Speaker 3: Oh, I like Capone with the free turkeys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Thanksgiving turkey giveaways and arson, Yeah, toy drives and
Speaker 2: drive bys.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 2: So in the nineteen sixties, there were hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of members of the Yakuza. Hundreds of thousands not true today, Wow,
Speaker 2: membership is way down.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Last year just over twenty thousand. Whoa, Yeah, that's just
Speaker 2: a third of what it was twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you didn't know that. It did not at all.
Speaker 2: And so part of it is that the cops really
Speaker 2: cracked down. Okay, So there was legislation.
Speaker 3: I saw Black Rain with Michael Douglas. We should probably
Speaker 3: do something about it.
Speaker 2: It's gone to the point where pointing.
Speaker 3: Hello, it's a great movie.
Speaker 2: So they passed legislation that bars members from opening bank accounts,
Speaker 2: renting apartments, buying cell phones, creating insurance.
Speaker 3: So they did like the whole gang interdiction.
Speaker 2: Thing radius and then older members were dying off of course,
Speaker 2: and you know it's the old debtor in jail thing
Speaker 2: and to.
Speaker 3: Replace younger ones if you've got that with your bosses.
Speaker 2: But the crime must go on. So what does an
Speaker 2: organization do when they don't have enough members to carry
Speaker 2: out the necessary criminal activity?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth, This is a fascinating conunder. What does say a
Speaker 3: yak is a boss do when he doesn't have the
Speaker 3: necessary criminals to carry out his criminal operation enter the
Speaker 3: gig economy.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's this thing to Couru. Here's how the Guardian
Speaker 2: newspaper characterizes them. Oh god quote formed by the characters
Speaker 2: for anonymous and fluid. The term to Couru refers and
Speaker 2: I know I'm not saying that correctly, and I heardy
Speaker 2: apologies to the Japanese refers to ad hoc groups formed
Speaker 2: to commit crimes where members often don't know each other,
Speaker 2: or those planning and directing their activities. They are distinct
Speaker 2: from the Yukuza and less hierarchical, usually with loose organizational
Speaker 2: structures above those carrying out crimes ranging from robberies and
Speaker 2: frauds to assaults and murders. So they're basically like temp workers'ps. Yes,
Speaker 2: they float around, they commit the crimes and they move along.
Speaker 2: And this is the group that's doing the major crimes
Speaker 2: in Japan now, and the Yakuza they're pulling smaller and
Speaker 2: smaller jobs like pettier crimes. One of those crimes that
Speaker 2: the Yukuza is doing stealing Pokemon cards, which is what
Speaker 2: I am all about today, Pokemon crime.
Speaker 3: We were just talking about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you got me thinking about it when you
Speaker 2: told the story of the dude who robbed the armored card.
Speaker 2: He tried to get away in the raft and the creek,
Speaker 2: and he later went on to counterfeit. So think of
Speaker 2: this episode as the spiritual sibling of our Batman episode,
Speaker 2: because it kind of came to me in much the
Speaker 2: same way. I've mentioned that I watched my nephew every Saturday, Yes,
Speaker 2: highlight of my week. As a result of this arrangement,
Speaker 2: I have a lot of toys in my house.
Speaker 3: Shout out to your nephew.
Speaker 2: Shout out to him, and for a while, they're the
Speaker 2: majority where Batman toys, and that remains true. Okay, but
Speaker 2: there's an up and comer, a little yellow fella real Pikachu.
Speaker 3: Oh you entered that phase?
Speaker 2: Did you? Did you know that, according to comic book
Speaker 2: dot com, pokem on is the highest grossing IP and
Speaker 2: intellectual property in the entertainment world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, actually I did know that because it's it is
Speaker 3: so enormous.
Speaker 2: It's huge. There are video games, cartoons and then the
Speaker 2: cars trading car backbone.
Speaker 3: Of hats with a little like press the button and
Speaker 3: it flaps.
Speaker 2: I mean the target audience is five to twelve. Okay,
Speaker 2: but you and I both know that people a lot
Speaker 2: older stick with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can be like a quadruple member of the
Speaker 3: target audience four times over.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like and like Harry Potter, they do it
Speaker 2: when they should know better.
Speaker 3: M h.
Speaker 2: I am a known Harry Potter hater. Yes, I have
Speaker 2: not read a book or seen.
Speaker 3: She hates Harry Potter.
Speaker 2: But see, I've seen enough of this whole thing to
Speaker 2: pity adults who are into it. So I figure I
Speaker 2: got the furries after me, why not add the Harry Potter.
Speaker 3: And you were ahead of the curve in the Harry Potter.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of people are coming around regretting
Speaker 3: tattoos and so forth, and there you are just looking
Speaker 3: smart and you're not being smug about it.
Speaker 2: I'd i am, but I just the lesson is to yeh,
Speaker 2: go on. So the corporate ownership structure of Pokemon is weird.
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 2: Well, most ips are owned by one company usually, and
Speaker 2: Pokemon is actually jointly owned by three Nintendo, game Freak
Speaker 2: and then Creatures, and so game Freak does all the
Speaker 2: like main role playing games, which are then published by
Speaker 2: Nintendo exclusively for their consoles, and then Creatures does all
Speaker 2: the trading card games that they this TCGs is theyre
Speaker 2: called and then the related merch and they develop spinoff titles.
Speaker 3: Oh, they do merchan cards.
Speaker 2: So do you know where the name Pokemon comes from?
Speaker 3: Hey on, I'm guessing from some kind of like we
Speaker 3: were really into Jamaica at the time, and we were like, oh,
Speaker 3: but we also really love eating poke. Why don't we
Speaker 3: put our two loves together poke and like, hame on
Speaker 3: a Pokemon from.
Speaker 2: A poke a Hawaiian poke shop in Jamaica. Hey on, No,
Speaker 2: it's the original full name of the franchise's Pocket Monsters,
Speaker 2: Poke and Mond.
Speaker 3: Totally.
Speaker 2: There you go. And so if you use Pokemon as
Speaker 2: a noun, which I think you probably should, I don't
Speaker 2: know how.
Speaker 3: To use it as I want to go Pokemon that
Speaker 3: meal over there? See those noodles about to be Pokemon up.
Speaker 2: Singular and plural forms are the same, okay, And that
Speaker 2: goes and that goes for all the individual species names
Speaker 2: as well. So if you say one Pokemon or twelve
Speaker 2: Pokemon or one Pikachu and nine million p ka chew,
Speaker 2: I got you. Yeah, And the official pronunciation is Pokemon
Speaker 2: and then or you can also officially say pokemonkemon, or
Speaker 2: if you're a jerk like me, you like to irritate people,
Speaker 2: you can say Pokemon.
Speaker 3: What if I just want to call it pokemon.
Speaker 2: You can call it pokemon, poke, Pokemon. That's the new Okay,
Speaker 2: So that's the alternative that I needed more information, So
Speaker 2: I went to pokemon dot com and I read the
Speaker 2: Pokemon basics page for parents. Lord, here's what they say
Speaker 2: under what are Pokemon?
Speaker 3: These are answers for parents. Yeah, they're trying to like
Speaker 3: get schooled on what their kids are too.
Speaker 2: So they're like, hey, Siri, what are pokemon? Quote. In
Speaker 2: the world of Pokemon, Pokemon are creatures of all shapes
Speaker 2: and sizes who live alongside humans. People known as Pokemon trainers,
Speaker 2: form lasting friendships with their Pokemon partners, and as a team,
Speaker 2: they go on adventures trained to improve their skills and
Speaker 2: battle in friendly competitions. During their journeys, Pookemon grow and
Speaker 2: become more experienced, and even on occasion, evolve in just
Speaker 2: stronger Pokemon. Ask a child what their favorite Pokemon is
Speaker 2: and you're bound to get an enthusiastic response. There are
Speaker 2: over a thousand Pokemon for you and your child to
Speaker 2: discover together Shizon's my favorite amazing story. Well, so like
Speaker 2: this is one hundred percent of kid thing like that
Speaker 2: that from the source. They're like, this is for kids. Well,
Speaker 2: so okay, like I said, my nephew has discovered Pokemon.
Speaker 2: He has a kid, and he's a kid. He's five.
Speaker 2: He has some cards, but mostly he's into Pikachu. Course,
Speaker 2: just the image, just the image of it. And right now,
Speaker 2: his his Pokemon world is like stuffies and those decorations
Speaker 2: on crocs and like a couple of cards from a
Speaker 2: McDonald's happy Mail. That's like, there's probably more, but I
Speaker 2: wasn't paying attention. Zaren. You actually saw him the other
Speaker 2: day and you were asking him how he would rob
Speaker 2: a bank and what he did with the money. And
Speaker 2: that got me thinking, okay, conversation well, and I wasn't
Speaker 2: thinking about how appropriate your conversations may or may not
Speaker 2: be with kids. It got me thinking about Pokemon crime.
Speaker 2: So I looked it up and apparently there's a crime
Speaker 2: that takes place in the world of Pokemon. But when
Speaker 2: I started reading about it, my eyes glazed over in
Speaker 2: my mind wandered, kind of like when you start talking
Speaker 2: about your ridiculous takeswak I know that. Look, but then
Speaker 2: I saw a word that grabbed my attention.
Speaker 3: What was it?
Speaker 2: Yeahkuza, Oh hey, I'm just learning about that. Not very
Speaker 2: kid friendly, but just as most intellectual property aimed at
Speaker 2: kids these days, Pokemon has been co opted or never
Speaker 2: grown out of, by plenty of adults. And adults like
Speaker 2: to collect things, which is the goal of Pokemon, and
Speaker 2: they have jobs, so they have money, right, And you
Speaker 2: made that really a stude observation recently about collectors and
Speaker 2: people collecting things in order to hang on to the
Speaker 2: past and memory.
Speaker 3: Oh I said that.
Speaker 2: You did say that, and that holds true for Pokemon cars.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, definitely I could see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when people collect things that gives them monetary value,
Speaker 2: sometimes rare things obviously have more worth. Pokemon cards no different.
Speaker 3: And childhood things that you can buy like Arson Wells
Speaker 3: and Citizen Kane.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, exactly. So. The most expensive Pokemon card ever
Speaker 2: sold was the nineteen ninety eight illustrator Pikachu card with
Speaker 2: a ten rating, and you covered that when we talked
Speaker 2: about the Bad Guy Collector. It was sold in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two for five million, two hundred and seventy eight
Speaker 2: thousand dollars to Logan Paul guy the boxer Dinge no,
Speaker 2: the brother of the oh guy that's going to fight
Speaker 2: Mike Tyson. They both have such punchable face.
Speaker 3: They're just one thing to me.
Speaker 2: I hope that Mike Tyson hits Jake Paul so hard
Speaker 2: that it gives Logan Paul brain. That's what I'm hoping for.
Speaker 3: Is that mean?
Speaker 2: Is that too violent? What's amazing? I am in the
Speaker 2: summer of dark Elizabeth. I'm noticing I've turned really I
Speaker 2: may no friends anymore. And when the world eases up,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go back to being super nice. So
Speaker 2: that I'm certified boogeyman, certified psychopath right now? Oh yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: Logan Paul. So, he bought a Pokemon card for more
Speaker 2: than five million dollars, and that's an anomaly in terms
Speaker 2: of pricing. That's not like, Yeah, the next highest value
Speaker 2: card was the nineteen ninety seven Cherizard. That's when you
Speaker 2: like top Sun Blue Back also also had the grade
Speaker 2: of PSA ten that's sold in January of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: one for just under five hundred thousand dollars. Okay, so
Speaker 2: I got ripped off, I ripped off. But that's not
Speaker 2: ages five to twelve money. No, it is not. That's
Speaker 2: grown folks who should know better. Yeah, that is not
Speaker 2: like some of the prices aren't really holding Toothairy. That's
Speaker 2: the one who gives your money Toothair. The third most
Speaker 2: expensive card sale was the nineteen ninety nine first edition
Speaker 2: Shadowless Holographic shars Are number four.
Speaker 3: Oh of course, Yeah, that Shadowless Sharzar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that whole thing. So that's March twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: for four hundred and twenty thousand dollars for twenty bro.
Speaker 2: But another card like Smoking, also rated ten, sold in
Speaker 2: February of this year for just one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: eight thousands.
Speaker 3: The price is going down.
Speaker 2: That one, it was, but not really. But it's still
Speaker 2: not ages five to twelve mon, No, not at all.
Speaker 2: It's just a bad investment. So back to the Yakuza,
Speaker 2: the boat of cards. I don't think they particularly cared
Speaker 2: about the Pokemon what cards. No, they cared about stealing
Speaker 2: something valuable there, and they weren't super fan.
Speaker 3: They weren't like cultural protectors.
Speaker 2: No, they didn't have Pikachu tattoos in the sleeve. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they cause they didn't concern themselves with petty crime,
Speaker 2: but the to Koryu they were pulling bigger jobs now,
Speaker 2: and that left people like Keita Saito doing things like
Speaker 2: stealing Pokemon cards and not half a mill cards, sixteen
Speaker 2: hundred dollars worth of cards?
Speaker 3: What? Yeah, and this is one of the gig workers.
Speaker 2: No, this is a yakuza. Oh, actually yakuza. The guy
Speaker 2: I'm talking about, he's not the Keita Saito, who's the
Speaker 2: Japanese actor who was in Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. Okay,
Speaker 2: he's the Keita Saito who is the leader of the
Speaker 2: Teknagawa Gang.
Speaker 3: Oh, the Tokenawa Gang.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's a faction of the second largest yukuza syndicate,
Speaker 2: the Sumyoshi Kai.
Speaker 3: Ah see, I only know the Tokenagawa from the Shogun era.
Speaker 3: But yeah, well this is I'm kidding.
Speaker 2: So how the mighty have fallen? Yeah, telling Spectator magazine said, quote,
Speaker 2: it's as if Don Corleone had been reduced to running
Speaker 2: a shell game. Watch the ball which Kep is in
Speaker 2: under on some New York Backstreet man.
Speaker 3: So uh, showing like fraudulent olive oil.
Speaker 2: Get Tokyo Police announced the arrest of Saito earlier this year.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty twenty two, he broke into a home.
Speaker 2: Twenty nine items were stolen during the robbery, and that
Speaker 2: included twenty five valuable pokemonk and some lunch money. Yeah, basically,
Speaker 2: And they also arrested another guy in connection with the
Speaker 2: break in. He wasn't tied to Yakuza, but it makes
Speaker 2: me wonder if he was one of the gig workers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's still a candy dish.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the cops are still looking for a couple
Speaker 2: other guys involved. But the big takeaway, thank you for.
Speaker 3: Ask what is the big takeaway, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: It's the Yakuza lieutenant got busted for trying to sell
Speaker 2: hot bulbosore cards and that tells you that they've fallen
Speaker 2: in power. Oh god, Yeah, Pokemon have grown in value.
Speaker 2: Waited Oh wow, balance the scale. Yeah, and in Japan,
Speaker 2: it's not just the Yakuza stealing Pokemon cards. That's where
Speaker 2: they're from. By the way, the Pokemon.
Speaker 3: Pokemons from Japan. Yeah, and the Yukuza they're from Japan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hand and hand cultural production. No. A couple of
Speaker 2: years ago, there was a Pokemon crime spree sweeping Japan.
Speaker 2: In August of twenty twenty two, thieves lifted around five
Speaker 2: hundred and forty cards worth about two hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: from a shop in Tokyo.
Speaker 3: Five hundred and forty. They're going to flood the market.
Speaker 2: Yeah for the best. Was this this Japanese guy who
Speaker 2: got busted for repelling down a bill right in order
Speaker 2: to steal Pokemon cards?
Speaker 3: Oh my, is he a gig worker?
Speaker 2: No safety harness, just vibe. No, he was an it
Speaker 2: worker in Tokyo and in March of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: he used a rope to sended a six story building
Speaker 2: to steal about eighty trading cards worth more than nine
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. And then he also found two thousand dollars
Speaker 2: in cash. And apparently he was desperate to get out
Speaker 2: of debt that he'd created for himself. It sounds like
Speaker 2: a scary way to try and get some quick cat.
Speaker 3: Oh, he's like a movie henchman like kind of crazy stuff.
Speaker 2: This is what he told the cops quote. I was
Speaker 2: in my high school's rock climbing club, so I wasn't
Speaker 2: afraid of heights. Okay, yeah, So the police identified him
Speaker 2: using surveillance footage. He gets arrested. They didn't say which
Speaker 2: Pokemon were taken or their condition upon recovery. But you
Speaker 2: know what, thoughts and prayers, prayer, Let's take a break.
Speaker 2: When we come back, we're going to look into more
Speaker 2: card theft and other Pokemon misadventures.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Elizabeth Zareny, Yeah you did Pokemon.
Speaker 3: Okay, Pokemon.
Speaker 2: Pokemon theft isn't just a japan thing.
Speaker 3: I bet not. I bet it goes down here too.
Speaker 2: If there's one thing the good old us of A
Speaker 2: knows how to export its ridiculous card.
Speaker 3: I knew it.
Speaker 2: And what's more American and criminal than Walmart, USA, USA.
Speaker 2: July twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, Ohio's Bowling Green police
Speaker 2: were called to Walmart on West Gypsy Lane Road. There
Speaker 2: were two people inside the store stocking up on Pokemon cards,
Speaker 2: and Walmart employees they watched the pair and they who
Speaker 2: happened to be wearing black masks, and yet the employees
Speaker 2: recognized them as a man and a woman who's stolen
Speaker 2: from Walmart in the past. So the man and the
Speaker 2: woman they used the automotive entrance to get into the store, okay,
Speaker 2: and they just started loading up on Pokemon cards. And
Speaker 2: a cop parked outside, so that you know, the employees
Speaker 2: call cop comes. He parks outside the automotive.
Speaker 3: These aren't special, these are just in the normal with
Speaker 3: the gum.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He gets out of his car. The cop does.
Speaker 2: He looks around the corner of the building, sees the
Speaker 2: suspects red Chevy with a broken side window covered in
Speaker 2: plastic the old probable cosmobiles.
Speaker 3: They have cardboard.
Speaker 2: It was a ready season. A second officer parked across
Speaker 2: the street and a third park down the road. Boys,
Speaker 2: we got ourselves a take down.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you. Perimeter security.
Speaker 2: So dispatch told the cops that the store's loss prevention
Speaker 2: had lost sight of the duo, and that's when the
Speaker 2: cop parked near the building saw the busted up Chevy
Speaker 2: driving toward the exit and passed the officer who was
Speaker 2: parked across the street. Also, so the two people seen
Speaker 2: in the vehicle matched the description given by the employee
Speaker 2: the cops. They tried to pull the Chevy over a
Speaker 2: couple of blocks away, but them duke boys weren't all
Speaker 2: about that, so they took off. The Chevy takes off.
Speaker 2: The cops hit the blues and twos the losses.
Speaker 3: They were born.
Speaker 2: It happened to make their way anyway. They know how
Speaker 2: I can just start singing the whole thing. So anyway,
Speaker 2: the Chevy Chevy gets onto the freeway starts going speeds
Speaker 2: over one hundred and five miles an hour.
Speaker 3: For pokemon cars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they must have had a couple of them rated
Speaker 2: tens in there, right. So the chase goes on a
Speaker 2: couple of cars driving up on the shoulders both right
Speaker 2: and left to get around heavy traffic. Then they get
Speaker 2: off the freeway, they spin out and then continue down
Speaker 2: another road. Sure they would like slow for a stop sign,
Speaker 2: but not fully right, No, just a Chevy's say it's
Speaker 2: the shovvyest like entification. They didn't fully stop. Add that
Speaker 2: to the charges. And then they took off it over
Speaker 2: one hundred miles an hour again I love Yeah, And
Speaker 2: at that point the officer lost sight of the vehicle
Speaker 2: and they had to terminate the pursuit.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: The cops were wiped out, Like, oh, how that took
Speaker 2: it out of me. They go back to the station
Speaker 2: to regroup and like think this out, kind of just
Speaker 2: catch a breath, and and they're given photos of the
Speaker 2: store surveillance and they look and they're like, that's Nicholas
Speaker 2: Starkey and Kayla Cannaba. They're frequent flyers. They know they're like,
Speaker 2: I know them. So those who must have grabbed some
Speaker 2: serious loot from the Walmart, like forget great value and
Speaker 2: faded glory stuff. They went for Pokemon of course. Yeah,
Speaker 2: how much of the good stuff did they grab?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Lord, dollars. According to the police report, two hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty four dollars in merchandise was taken from the No,
Speaker 2: that's the saddest trombone right there, and then they got busted.
Speaker 3: Saddest misdemeanor.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty two. That was a rough year for Pokemon cards.
Speaker 2: I keep bringing it up. Why let's do a little
Speaker 2: side quest. Oh, I've been talking about the value of
Speaker 2: the cards and how they for the most part.
Speaker 3: Keep going talk about the aesthetic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well not yet and some of them, some of
Speaker 2: the cards are super rare, which makes them even more valuable. Obviously.
Speaker 2: What does the Pokemon company think about all this?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth? I was curious with all of this. You know, Oh,
Speaker 3: we make cards, some of them, we make a lot
Speaker 3: of some we make a few of What do they
Speaker 3: think about that? The value creation.
Speaker 2: They are aware, they are not happy. Oddly enough, remember
Speaker 2: they want this to be for kids, and they're actively
Speaker 2: trying to curb the speculation.
Speaker 3: That's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, See, it's been tough to get Pokemon cards for
Speaker 2: the past few years. I bet because right around their
Speaker 2: twenty fifth anniversary the cards got really popular again. And so,
Speaker 2: like you take this combination of pandemic boredom, oh right, nostalgia,
Speaker 2: and then the notion that like, I've got all these
Speaker 2: cards in my mom's garage that might make me rich,
Speaker 2: I'm sitting on wealth. Old and new Pokemon cards start
Speaker 2: selling out as soon as they hit store shelves. Wow, Like,
Speaker 2: it's just crazy. They told you my nephew had some
Speaker 2: from a McDonald's Happy Meal. People were buying stole them,
Speaker 2: he stole them from another kid people at your request.
Speaker 2: People were buying those burgers just for the special cards.
Speaker 2: They're like, I'll take six Happy Meals and just for
Speaker 2: the car cards.
Speaker 3: I bet they threw the food away with that, thinking.
Speaker 2: To say, probably a hate waste of food, theft and
Speaker 2: crazy customer behavior. When the new cards dropped got so
Speaker 2: bad that Target took the cards off their shelves and
Speaker 2: only sold them online.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding you right now.
Speaker 3: You people can't have these. Get away from us. Don't
Speaker 3: even come into our store. We don't have them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're a grown ass people acting crazy. Card grading
Speaker 2: services like the one here. I was thinking they had
Speaker 2: so many requests for grading from collectors that they had
Speaker 2: to pause new submissions in order to get through their backlog.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: No, So the Pokemon company sees this, Yeah, this is
Speaker 2: how they responded. Quote, We're aware that some fans are
Speaker 2: experiencing difficulties purchasing certain Pokemon Trading card game products due
Speaker 2: to the very high demand. They said this in a tweet.
Speaker 2: In response, we are reprinting impacted products at maximum capacity.
Speaker 2: More fans can enjoy the Pokemon TCG.
Speaker 3: I was just about to say, they control the production.
Speaker 3: How do they flood the zone?
Speaker 2: What's maximum capacity? We're wondering, we're sitting out here. In
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, the company produced more than nine billion
Speaker 2: with a B cards, whole ninety billion as many as
Speaker 2: the year before, when they made three point seven billion cards.
Speaker 2: They usually print between one and two billion cards a year,
Speaker 2: and that means that more than forty five billion cards
Speaker 2: have been produced since the game launched, nine billion in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of ink.
Speaker 2: More than a quarter of all Pokemon cards printed were
Speaker 2: produced from twenty twenty to twenty twenty two. Yeah, more
Speaker 2: than a quarter. So that's why we see this twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two uptick one place that ticked on up.
Speaker 3: I'm sure the fans would just come up with a
Speaker 3: whole This is a pre twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Two That's exactly what happened. Yeah, and so punch Out Gaming,
Speaker 2: Forest Lake, Minnesota, little shop. In February of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: a thief broke into a vacant store next door to
Speaker 2: punch Out Gaming and punched out. Broke through the sheared
Speaker 2: wall like some sort of crazy coolid. They punched in.
Speaker 2: Over the course of about two hours, the dude emptied
Speaker 2: out two entire storage rooms full of Pokemon products. Wow,
Speaker 2: and the store's alarm never went off because it was
Speaker 2: only the door. Robber man never went in or out
Speaker 2: of a door. And how much Pokemon? Wait, did this
Speaker 2: guy move one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of merchandise?
Speaker 3: Damn?
Speaker 2: The owner of the store said quote, he must have
Speaker 2: had help because there were a lot of boxes, and
Speaker 2: according to Fox nine, who interviewed him, quote, the gaming
Speaker 2: store has been opened for eight years and the theft
Speaker 2: has been a big hit to the small, family owned business. Quote.
Speaker 2: I realized how much money, product and time we put
Speaker 2: into it, and I just started crying. I can't recover
Speaker 2: this product because our distributors don't have any so even
Speaker 2: with the insurance money, that doesn't do us any good,
Speaker 2: said Johnson. Though, yeah, but all was not lost, Oh good.
Speaker 2: Apparently the whole online Pokemon community rallied around the store
Speaker 2: and kept an eye open for online listings that might
Speaker 2: be selling the stolen goods. And then the cops were
Speaker 2: able to identify the purpse. Well not not the cops,
Speaker 2: per se. Online sleuths identified the men because they had
Speaker 2: surveillance footage right, and the guy was wearing a mask,
Speaker 2: and then all these people online did this reconstruction of
Speaker 2: what his face would look like and it's hilarious looking.
Speaker 2: I'll put it in there. Oh yeah, so they and
Speaker 2: then once they idem, then the cops got the nail
Speaker 2: in the coffin DNA.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: I'm serious of it? Turns out. I guess they from
Speaker 2: the shop and they figured, okay, we had the people
Speaker 2: are like, we've identified a Matthew Cooper's and then this guy,
Speaker 2: Dustin Witturn. They worked together to break into the store.
Speaker 2: They used a knife to cut through the drywall. They
Speaker 2: creeped in through the hole, stole the cards and the merchandise.
Speaker 2: Somewhere along the line they left DNA. I'm impressed that
Speaker 2: police there used that technology for a burglary. That's above
Speaker 2: and beyond, and I love it.
Speaker 3: I know you're always about touch DNA.
Speaker 2: I am. They got charged with third degree burglary and
Speaker 2: then the store they you know, upgraded their security alarms
Speaker 2: that monitored more than the door. They also leased the
Speaker 2: space next door where they broke in, and they made
Speaker 2: it into a new gaming area. Well look at that
Speaker 2: happy ending all the way around. One another happy ending.
Speaker 3: I love Pokemon happy endings.
Speaker 2: This one has spoiler alert happy ending. So it was
Speaker 2: a quiet day recently at pro Play Games in Miami.
Speaker 2: It's a little shop that's located in one of those
Speaker 2: two story strip malls on a busy multi lane avenue.
Speaker 3: I can picture it.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the strip mall is in it's in a
Speaker 2: huge complex that makes sort of an L shape coming
Speaker 2: off a big public.
Speaker 3: Smart imagine coral colored paint.
Speaker 2: I like publics. I wish we had them out here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're good.
Speaker 2: The recently defunct Florida Career College looks to have taken
Speaker 2: up most of the top floor of one half of
Speaker 2: the complex. There's a dentist's office, a nail salon, a
Speaker 2: smoke shop, a Chinese restaurant, a place does concealed gun permits.
Speaker 3: This is so Florida.
Speaker 2: Oh, it is freestyle fighting academy.
Speaker 3: Like I'm visiting family. This is amazing freestyle fighting academy.
Speaker 2: Oh I heard you and pro play games.
Speaker 3: Yeah all together.
Speaker 2: Sure, a lot more, but you get the picture. Speaking
Speaker 2: of picture, yes, zarens Oh, yeah, I want you to
Speaker 2: picture it. It's a warm May day in Miami. You're
Speaker 2: an eight year old girl. Your mom was in the
Speaker 2: phlebotomy program at Florida Career College, but the whole place
Speaker 2: closed down a few months ago after the FEDS busted
Speaker 2: them for cooking the enrollment in federal financial aid books.
Speaker 2: You're standing outside the college on the outdoor second floor
Speaker 2: walkway of the shopping center where the college is located.
Speaker 2: Traffic whizzes by while you both wait for someone to
Speaker 2: come and open the door. Your mom and a handful
Speaker 2: of other students have been told they can come by
Speaker 2: today to empty out lockers they had in the medical
Speaker 2: training area, and they're also hoping to get their hands
Speaker 2: on hard copies of their transcript. The whole thing has
Speaker 2: been a nightmare. You're a patient, helpful girl. As the
Speaker 2: door opens and a former administrator ushers the students in,
Speaker 2: your mom turns to you and hands you a ten
Speaker 2: dollars bill that's way more than she normally would give you,
Speaker 2: and you aren't sure she can afford it. You hesitate,
Speaker 2: and she gently caresses the top of your head and
Speaker 2: tells you to go down to the gaming shop in
Speaker 2: the corner. They have Pokemon cards, and she says you
Speaker 2: can get some. Wait there and she'll come and get
Speaker 2: you in she's done, You smile and skip down the
Speaker 2: outdoor walkway toward pro play games. You went in there
Speaker 2: once before when you had to go with your mom
Speaker 2: for her to go to school. The people in there
Speaker 2: are super nice. The door chimes as you walk in,
Speaker 2: and the lady behind the counter smiles and greets you.
Speaker 2: You say hello, and put your hands in your pockets,
Speaker 2: just like your mom told you. Look, don't touch, not
Speaker 2: until you're ready to take something up to the counter.
Speaker 2: A pop song plays faintly in the sound system as
Speaker 2: you peruse a rack of Pokemon card packs. You can't
Speaker 2: see what's inside them anyway, so it's no problem to
Speaker 2: just look at the outside. You check the prices and
Speaker 2: move on cataloging the ones you may come back for.
Speaker 2: You walk over by the counter and look at some
Speaker 2: one of the comic book titles they have. Glancing over
Speaker 2: at the case full of multi sided dice, you think
Speaker 2: that maybe when you're older, you'll be able to play
Speaker 2: games that use those, but for now, it's a little
Speaker 2: too complicated. A man walks up to the counter and
Speaker 2: asks to look at a binder full of Pokemon cards
Speaker 2: kept behind the clerk. She smiles and lays the binder
Speaker 2: down on the counter. You inch closer to get a
Speaker 2: look at some of the special cards. There. That's a
Speaker 2: big binder, you whisper to yourself. The clerk hears you
Speaker 2: holds three thousand cards, she says, you whistle. Impressed with that,
Speaker 2: You peer into the binder and see bright colors and
Speaker 2: hologram edges, and you think about where you'd put those
Speaker 2: special cards if you had them. You keep them in
Speaker 2: that cool cigar box your grandpa gave you, the one
Speaker 2: that smells faintly of floral tobacco. The customer looks at
Speaker 2: the binder and then quickly closes it. He scoops it
Speaker 2: up and heads for the door. Hey you yell, drop
Speaker 2: the stuff, yells the woman behind the counter. The man
Speaker 2: just laughs and walks away the door chiming is he exits.
Speaker 2: There's a couple other people in the store, and they
Speaker 2: follow the man out, yelling for him to stop. The
Speaker 2: owner of the shop comes out of the back and
Speaker 2: heads for the door. You go to follow, but the
Speaker 2: clerk calls you back. You stay here, she says. Outside
Speaker 2: the store, a group has formed around the man with
Speaker 2: the binder. They shout for him to drop the goods,
Speaker 2: to stop, to hand it over. You press your face
Speaker 2: to the glass window to get a look at the action.
Speaker 2: They're muffled shouting is both scary and exciting. The man
Speaker 2: pulls a pair of pliers from his pocket and makes
Speaker 2: stabbing motions at the people around him. They all gasp.
Speaker 2: Then the guy takes off down the stairs toward the
Speaker 2: parking lot. His feet hit the hot, black assphalt and
Speaker 2: he starts to run, but not particularly fast. The owner
Speaker 2: of the store, still at the top of the stairs,
Speaker 2: yell stop, saef help. It's like something out of an
Speaker 2: old movie. You walk out the door of the shop
Speaker 2: and peer over the railing, watching as the guy trots away.
Speaker 2: Remember how I told you that freestyle fighting academy was
Speaker 2: located in this shopping center. Well, the good folks there here.
Speaker 2: The owners cries for help. Two guys on their way
Speaker 2: in to teach jiu jitsu at the academy see the
Speaker 2: man with the binder. They chase after him, yelling for
Speaker 2: him to stop. They easily catch up with him and
Speaker 2: tag him to the ground. That's got to hurt, you think.
Speaker 2: You look up above you and see that there's a
Speaker 2: security camera aimed right at the action. That'll come in
Speaker 2: handy later, you think. By this time, the owner and
Speaker 2: other bystanders have reached the man with the binder. The
Speaker 2: two martial arts coaches have me pinned down, and others
Speaker 2: join in holding the thief to the ground. You hear
Speaker 2: sirens approaching. You better get back over to your mom.
Speaker 2: She'll be worried. You walk back along the outdoor covered
Speaker 2: walkway and figure you'll wait outside the door for your mom.
Speaker 2: Just as you arrive, the door opens and she walks out.
Speaker 2: She's smiling. She tells you that one of the other
Speaker 2: students hooked her up with a job at a doctor's
Speaker 2: office and they'll help her finish her certification. You haven't
Speaker 2: seen her this relieved and happy in a long time.
Speaker 2: She asked, if you got anything good? Nope, you say
Speaker 2: anything interesting? Nope, you say You hand her back the
Speaker 2: ten dollars bill, take her hand, and walk in the
Speaker 2: opposite direction of the police action to her car. She's
Speaker 2: none the wiser, nothing to worry her today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. I love community actions.
Speaker 2: So this guy, Jesse L. Manfer All Man for All, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he tried to walk out of that shop with three
Speaker 2: thousand Pokemon cards.
Speaker 3: Sarah, what's your new fake name of choice? You mean me,
Speaker 3: mister man for All.
Speaker 2: That was thirty thousand dollars worth of cards that he
Speaker 2: had in that ninth Yeah. And so he gets booked
Speaker 2: into jail on charges of grand theft and aggravated assault,
Speaker 2: and the day was saved. It's like something out of
Speaker 2: a comic book or a cool game. Yes, there's footage.
Speaker 2: I'm going to have the interns put that on Instagram too.
Speaker 2: Let's pause here for some ads, and when we come
Speaker 2: back more Pokemon zaren. So we've established the Pokemon cards
Speaker 2: easy to steal. It's a lucrative lift. You know what,
Speaker 2: the most valuable Pokemon cards. It's your favorite, not just
Speaker 2: for trading and collecting, what for like sex guys, strip
Speaker 2: Pokemon trip Pokemon University University of Georgia, Athens police officers
Speaker 2: were dispatched to Lipscomb Hall on August nineteenth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: That's our big year, University of Georgia, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: one eight am one. They got called on a report
Speaker 2: from an employee that a student was throwing up in
Speaker 2: the hall and bedroom, which I don't believe that warrants
Speaker 2: a call to the cops, but that's an interesting call.
Speaker 2: Not a party school. So officers they go to the
Speaker 2: student's dorm and they find him unconscious and laying on
Speaker 2: his bed and his roommate's laying on the other bed. Okay,
Speaker 2: so they just passed out. The cops try to talk
Speaker 2: to the student, but he wouldn't wake up, and the
Speaker 2: officer just like shakes him, shakes and still doesn't wake up.
Speaker 2: They checked his pulse normal.
Speaker 3: Okay, so he's a lot yeah, like Jimi Hendrix.
Speaker 2: There's one groups. So they just keep like shaking him.
Speaker 2: They feel he's got a pulse, so they just keep
Speaker 2: shaking him, and finally he wakes up and he's all disoriented.
Speaker 2: This is all in the police report. With some quick
Speaker 2: on the spot investigation, the cops determined that the student
Speaker 2: was under twenty one years of age. They continued their investigation.
Speaker 2: He's like they asked how many drinks he's had, four beers.
Speaker 2: Had you taken any drugs? No? So they're like, so
Speaker 2: you're a lightweights getting super light and like one of
Speaker 2: them writes it down in his little notebook of secrets
Speaker 2: and riddles. So when asked if you'd taken any medication,
Speaker 2: the student said he'd taken melatonin. Okay. So they're like,
Speaker 2: so you're gonna have some crazy nightmares, got it scribble
Speaker 2: And the cops were like, how did you get the
Speaker 2: alcohol if you're under twenty one? He's like, I went
Speaker 2: to a bar. Okay, how'd you get into the bar?
Speaker 2: He's like, I use my ID. He gets his wallet
Speaker 2: out and he hands them a Schaizard card. That's how
Speaker 2: he got into the bars, a Pokemon card.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Okay, I'll put it this way. A lot of
Speaker 3: people are unaware of the fact that those bouncers often
Speaker 3: only care if you go through the act of showing
Speaker 3: them a card. I didn't realize that when I was
Speaker 3: young until I tried it because one day I wanted
Speaker 3: to get in. I wasn't twenty one. I was with
Speaker 3: a bunch of people who were older and they were
Speaker 3: so I said, hey, let me see your ID. He's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't have I only have my idea. I'm like,
Speaker 3: you were just saying you have an expired ID. He's like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, I'm like give it to me. So I
Speaker 3: use an expired idea of my friend, who was a
Speaker 3: very light skinned Jewish man, looked nothing like me. The
Speaker 3: guy the bouncer looked at it, laughed his ass off
Speaker 3: at means like, all right, going in because I made
Speaker 3: him laugh, and I went through the whole respecting his job.
Speaker 3: I'm just telling you is that I'm not surprised at
Speaker 3: a I.
Speaker 2: Can't find this guy's name and what he really what
Speaker 2: if he actually looked exactly like Sharazar. That would be dope,
Speaker 2: and they're like, well that makes sense. Yeah, Pokemon Sorry,
Speaker 2: we've always been careful. Pokemon Go is happening. You're very
Speaker 2: valuable around as a total side of Pokemon Go. But yeah,
Speaker 2: there were so many crimes associated with Pokemon Go of
Speaker 2: like trespassing, and then they're all like.
Speaker 3: People getting robbed.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and then there's like super violent crimes that
Speaker 2: we won't but yeah, that that could be its whole.
Speaker 3: And then the one person like walked off the cliff.
Speaker 2: It's crazy anyway, So he used that card to get
Speaker 2: into the bars. An ambulance showed up, checked the kid out.
Speaker 2: He declined transport to a hospital, which is smart because
Speaker 2: ambulance rides are expensive, and then he was given medical
Speaker 2: amnesty from any charges because they were just more concerned
Speaker 2: about his well being. So could you imagine trying to
Speaker 2: live that down? Like your two things, you're either like
Speaker 2: I would tell everybody legend or you're like the biggest nerds.
Speaker 3: How am I not a legend? I gave the comps
Speaker 3: a Shahrazard card and they're like, sorry, where do you
Speaker 3: what is this? I'm like this is my ID, And
Speaker 3: they're like, are you kidding me? I went through my.
Speaker 2: Whole night with this. Yeah, I guess he is a legend.
Speaker 2: Good good on him. Back to the robbing and stealing,
Speaker 2: the burning and looting.
Speaker 3: You think he's a nerd?
Speaker 2: I do one thing. It's one thing to steal Pokemon
Speaker 2: stuff from a card shop, sure, whether you bust through
Speaker 2: a wall or just walk right out. But it's another
Speaker 2: to go after the collectors. Do they make good targets individually?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you better believe it. Oh yeah. And yet
Speaker 2: another twenty twenty two crime. Wow, a grown man had
Speaker 2: his card stolen from right out from under him.
Speaker 3: The rest of us had no idea so much Pokemon
Speaker 3: was going on. Two.
Speaker 2: Christopher Polydoro a sixty two year old insurance broker in
Speaker 2: South Carolina. He lives in a seven bedroom, sixty eight
Speaker 2: hundred square foot home right on the water.
Speaker 3: He's doing well selling insurance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he kept his collection of valuable Pokemon first edition
Speaker 2: cards and a temperature controlled collectible room in his house.
Speaker 3: Room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not like a gun safe, now, like a room.
Speaker 2: And like if you're at his house for a party
Speaker 2: and he tries to like flex on you and brag
Speaker 2: and show you this room and then I just like
Speaker 2: impede my pants laughing and then escort it out.
Speaker 3: You said, this is a seven bedroom home, so yeah,
Speaker 3: only six of them are bedrooms. One is a temperature
Speaker 3: controlled Pokemon bedrooms.
Speaker 2: And then on top of that, there's an extra room.
Speaker 2: It's it's a candy spelling gift wrap room. It's its
Speaker 2: own thing. It's its own thing.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just all Pokemon cards. There were baseball, football,
Speaker 2: basketball cards in there too. Had like a Jackson three
Speaker 2: unopened boxes of Pokemon cards went missing. Polydor told investigators
Speaker 2: that the only other individuals to ever enter the collectible's
Speaker 2: room in the past nine months were workers with an
Speaker 2: h VAC company. So he's not even showing this stuff
Speaker 2: off anyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no friends, no family, doesn't even have like a
Speaker 3: Pokemon buddy to.
Speaker 2: Come over and look at his lightest two adult sons,
Speaker 2: and he lives with his fiance. Okay, those are my suspects.
Speaker 2: The best part is that the police report states that
Speaker 2: the Pokemon cards were valued at half a billion dollars.
Speaker 2: A yeah, and is there like a parenthesis ha ha
Speaker 2: ha ha. That's obviously not true. And then Polydor told
Speaker 2: the press that the cop me to typeout they're actually
Speaker 2: worth half a million dollars five hundred thousand dollars worth
Speaker 2: of Pokemon cards. That's insane, that's nuts. He said they
Speaker 2: actually believe that too. He said he bought the cards
Speaker 2: more than twenty years ago, and that the unopened boxes
Speaker 2: each had twenty four packs of cards in them.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: One of the boxes, he said, contained a valuable Japanese
Speaker 2: edition of the cards, and his valuation was based on
Speaker 2: recent auction sales that brought in six figures for similar
Speaker 2: first edition boxes issued in nineteen ninety nine. So that's
Speaker 2: what you're saying, like, if you can get the pre
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two massive run. The collection was not insured.
Speaker 2: And again, I don't think it was the HVAC guys.
Speaker 2: I think it's the two grown kids. I think they
Speaker 2: did it. That's pure speculation on my part, don't sue me.
Speaker 2: I think it was Nicholas Cage, and in concert with
Speaker 2: Nicholas Cage.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying. The man's a collector. He's known to
Speaker 3: break in to steal things. I think so was there
Speaker 3: a woman he get impressed with this card?
Speaker 2: Because case clothes we solved it. Next we have thefts
Speaker 2: from stores, thefts from collectors. What about thefts from the source,
Speaker 2: from the fact.
Speaker 3: The magazine Hip hop magazine, the source.
Speaker 2: With the game on the cover. This is from the
Speaker 2: factory itself. So apparently steps from Pokemon printing factories became
Speaker 2: a trend during the pandemic. Prices are starting to go up.
Speaker 2: If you're a factory worker and you see this paper
Speaker 2: gold come sliding on by you on a production inside
Speaker 2: jobs gangster's breakdown, of course you're sitting right there. Got
Speaker 2: to catch them all.
Speaker 4: The gold is going right past you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And so the Pokemon company that's the like
Speaker 2: the found out about this and quietly tried to put
Speaker 2: a stop to it. And then last year the biggest
Speaker 2: every factory theft came to light. Well, a photo went
Speaker 2: around of thousands of Fusion strikes secret rare cards that
Speaker 2: were stolen from a factory in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: Fusion strikes, Fusion strikes, Sarin Elizabeth, This fusion strike you mentioned,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: What what is? It beats me. Even after reading this
Speaker 2: explanation on the Pokemon website, the road ahead reveals limitless
Speaker 2: potential with the Pokemon TCG Sword and Shield Fusion Strike expansion,
Speaker 2: offering opportunities for Pokemon and trainers alike to reach new heights.
Speaker 2: The most recent expansion introduces the third and final battlestyle,
Speaker 2: Fusion Strike, joining Rapid Strike Style and Single Strike Style.
Speaker 2: The Fusion Strike style prioritizes teamwork and adaptability to deliver
Speaker 2: powerful attacks. Explore the power of teamwork in Pokemon. TCG
Speaker 2: Sword and Shield Fusion Strike. So they didn't want to
Speaker 2: call it tag team. It's still not clear, so let
Speaker 2: me go on. Fusion Strikes style is all about adapting
Speaker 2: and overcoming. Powerful Pokemon like Mew Hoopa and Jena Sect
Speaker 2: embrace this striking new style, while Deoxy Please harness the
Speaker 2: power of all three battle styles. Awesome new trainer cards
Speaker 2: help complement the power and balance all of the Fusion
Speaker 2: Strike style. Make strategic use of cards like the Cross
Speaker 2: Switcher item card to keep opponents off balance and ensure
Speaker 2: your active and benched Pokemon are exactly where you need them.
Speaker 2: Use the Power Tablet item card to maximize Fusion Strike
Speaker 2: attacks by doing additional damage, and the Spongy Gloves Pokemon
Speaker 2: tool card maximizes damage against certain types of Pokemon. This
Speaker 2: expansion features dozens of new Pokemon five and or is
Speaker 2: it v and vmax, plus many alternate art versions to collect.
Speaker 2: With powerful attacks and massive HP, these Pokemon can create
Speaker 2: unique challenges for your opponents, from a rill a boom
Speaker 2: vmax with an incredible three point thirty HP to a
Speaker 2: single strike cinde Ice vmax with some fiery tendencies to
Speaker 2: an intelli on v Max with a passion for stuff.
Speaker 2: This expansions Pokemon v Max could not be underestimated. So
Speaker 2: at this point they're not speaking a human language anymore.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth, I have this headgear. I'd like you to put
Speaker 3: this on. I'd like you to read all of that
Speaker 3: again with the head gear on. Could you do that
Speaker 3: for me?
Speaker 2: Vmax from vax incredible three HP?
Speaker 3: You like?
Speaker 2: I don't it? May, I'm more.
Speaker 3: Confused and sounds for you.
Speaker 2: I know that I feel like I'm having a stroke.
Speaker 2: The stolen Fusion Strike cards, they're passed around the criminal underworld,
Speaker 2: like so many spongy gloves, being offered. Finally to a
Speaker 2: hobby store in Texas called Trading Card World, very unique name.
Speaker 2: Someone came in and was like, you want to buy
Speaker 2: a set of these Fusion strikes and then they were like,
Speaker 2: what's that, and they had to explain the whole thing
Speaker 2: you read from the Pokemon website like I just did.
Speaker 2: The shop owners like, okay, that makes sense. So the
Speaker 2: shop they checked them out and they saw that these
Speaker 2: were thousands of the very rarest cards ever on Earth ever,
Speaker 2: and they're like, this guy's not a regular collector, like.
Speaker 3: No one has.
Speaker 2: This had to have come from the source.
Speaker 3: Like if you walked in with Wagner cards.
Speaker 2: There's this there's this amazing Pokemon website called PokeBeach dot com.
Speaker 3: What like beach like as in were the waves beach be.
Speaker 2: This beach over beach poke Beach. So it's like, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 3: Him on I'm seeing the Jamaicans coming back around, coming
Speaker 3: back to its source.
Speaker 2: They reported quote the seller explained his connection to his source,
Speaker 2: and we immediately contacted TPCI, which would be the Pokemon
Speaker 2: Company International through proper channels. The store stated tpc I
Speaker 2: opened an investigation and a private investigator flew out to
Speaker 2: collect the cards from the store. Pokemon expressed to this
Speaker 2: or that quote it was the largest return of stolen
Speaker 2: property to date. Pokemon concluded their investigation on January twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, which probably means they identified the original thief,
Speaker 2: so they kept it hush. They put a lock, so
Speaker 2: we don't know the full value too. No, none of that.
Speaker 2: Poke Beach pointed out that people thought having all the
Speaker 2: good cards taken out before they were sealed into packs
Speaker 2: meant that fans couldn't get any good cards when they
Speaker 2: opened the packs.
Speaker 3: That's what I would think.
Speaker 2: The odds wouldn't be in your favor. More on this
Speaker 2: from Poke Beach, oh thank you quote. The cards seem
Speaker 2: to have been stolen during the production phase. When they're
Speaker 2: stored in boxes. The secret rares are printed separately from
Speaker 2: other cards because of their texture. The secret rares are
Speaker 2: printed on large sheets, cut into individual cards, and stored
Speaker 2: in long white boxes. See this, I can understand. I
Speaker 2: can follow this.
Speaker 3: Gold ticket stuff for.
Speaker 2: Kamon language. But these guys make sense, Okay, I'll continue on.
Speaker 2: At least five of those white boxes are packed into
Speaker 2: a cardboard box that sent off to machines that sort
Speaker 2: the cards into booster packs. The machine loads different boxes
Speaker 2: of cards into each booster pack depending on their rarity.
Speaker 2: We imagine the sorting machines alert the workers when they're
Speaker 2: running low on certain rarities, meaning packs shouldn't have escaped
Speaker 2: the factory without the proper rate of secret raars, Otherwise
Speaker 2: it would be common for packs to be missing cards.
Speaker 2: The factories also weigh every single booster pack. This not
Speaker 2: only ensures that the packs have the proper amount of
Speaker 2: cards in them, but it's also so that they know
Speaker 2: what code card to insert into the packs. Specret wraars
Speaker 2: are heavier than a normal card, so lighter code cards
Speaker 2: are put in the packs to cancel out the weight difference.
Speaker 2: This prevents packweighing an aftermarket, so it's unlikely packs with
Speaker 2: improper weights would have left the factory floor, let alone
Speaker 2: on a scale large enough to impact the entire print run.
Speaker 2: There's multiple checks and balances in place. I'm so impressed
Speaker 2: with it. It's fascinating. I have no idea, Like I'm thinking, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they just shuffle them up and throw cut them, yeah,
Speaker 2: cut them, bag them.
Speaker 3: Much thought put in, like lifter cards and stuff or
Speaker 3: waider cards what you want to call them.
Speaker 2: So it seems to me, what.
Speaker 3: Does it seem to you?
Speaker 2: A little? But there's nowhere safe for Pokemon cards except
Speaker 2: for in the grubby hands of a kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where they immediately tarnished the value by making them
Speaker 3: not being pristine value.
Speaker 2: I put love on them, Yes, exactly, Zaren. What is
Speaker 2: your ridiculous takeaway.
Speaker 3: When it comes to things like, uh, collectibles, I hate boxes.
Speaker 3: So like I've I was you know, I had friends
Speaker 3: one time, Elizabeth, when I was a kid. When I
Speaker 3: was a kid, I had friends and they used to
Speaker 3: like some of them were like only children, and they
Speaker 3: were like, Oh, I'm going to collect stuff and then
Speaker 3: I'm going to sell back to you in a couple
Speaker 3: of years. And I was like, I'm not going to buy.
Speaker 3: They're like, yeah, you will, yeah, And I'm like what.
Speaker 3: They're like, yeah, no, because look at this value. And
Speaker 3: they'd show me the value and I'm like, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I don't I want the toy to play with. They're like,
Speaker 3: you're dumb, You're you'll buy this, and I'm like, you
Speaker 3: future collectors. And my point is this is that some
Speaker 3: people would rather have the pleasure of knowing they're going
Speaker 3: to get a deal or money in the future, and
Speaker 3: that delights them. I just want to play with my toys.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm not a collector in that way, but I do
Speaker 3: collect stuff and then I make it all grubby. So
Speaker 3: I'm not really a collector. I'm more of like a
Speaker 3: stuff haver.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a true collector because it's for
Speaker 2: a personal thing I look at, like, here, let me
Speaker 2: give you my ridiculous takeaways. Thank you for as I
Speaker 2: didn't really care, but go on. I feel like we
Speaker 2: primed the pump for millennials to get super heavy into
Speaker 2: this because the nineties were Pokemon and beanie babies. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: and a couple of beanie babies were like kids weren't
Speaker 2: allowed to play with beanie babies, like they had to
Speaker 2: leave the tags on because they were going to gain value.
Speaker 3: They had a bunch of other stuff, like those pocket
Speaker 3: walk things.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, all sorts of that stuff. So but it
Speaker 2: was like here's a toy, but it's not a toy.
Speaker 2: I don't really play with it. This is going to
Speaker 2: be worth something later on. And so then now like
Speaker 2: they're all kind of looking back at their childhood stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, instead of like lovingly, like you know, looking at
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. And so I just anytime I
Speaker 2: see a beanie baby with a tag on it, I
Speaker 2: want to pull the tag off. It's supposed to be.
Speaker 2: It's the summer of dark Elizabeth. I not like I don't.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna watch my p's and q's.
Speaker 2: I have been pushed to my absolute limit and it
Speaker 2: doesn't help. But it's like nine thousand degrees right now.
Speaker 3: That is driving always does that about you. You get a
Speaker 3: little prickly when it gets hot with that mercury climb.
Speaker 2: Also, it's just even so I just these days. Oh,
Speaker 2: there's a lot to get there's a lot to get
Speaker 2: heated about. The world's kind of crazy, yeah, and so
Speaker 2: I'm getting I'm trying to be as gentle as I
Speaker 2: can with everybody, even though on the inside I'm just
Speaker 2: not raging constantly about everything. So yeah, be watch your
Speaker 2: beanie babies around me. I'm wanna rip the tags off. David.
Speaker 2: You know what make me feel better? A talk back?
Speaker 3: Can you hook this woman up?
Speaker 2: Oh God, I love get.
Speaker 5: Hello from Utah's Aaron Elizabeth, producer, Dave, all the interns.
Speaker 5: I wanted to say, thank you guys so much for
Speaker 5: giving us such an amazing show. I have undergone a
Speaker 5: lot of surgeries the last few years. You guys have
Speaker 5: been there with me every step of the way to
Speaker 5: help make recovery a little bit easier and full of
Speaker 5: laughs with all of your crazy antics and ridiculous crimes.
Speaker 5: And I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: We love you, we got you back. First of all,
Speaker 2: you're the kindest person because you gave a shout out
Speaker 2: to the interns. Yes and big d. And also we
Speaker 2: know what it's like to live in bodies that are
Speaker 2: not cooperative. So fully, I'm there with you. I love it.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we could help totally.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad we give you there. Yeah, I've done
Speaker 3: on my back on the hospital bed. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's I like that. That makes me happy.
Speaker 2: Now now the summer of Dark Elizabeth is bright and
Speaker 2: half a little feel really good. This is as a
Speaker 2: reciprocation machine over here. It is. That's it for today.
Speaker 2: You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
Speaker 2: It's ad Age declared it the website of the century.
Speaker 2: Did you see that?
Speaker 3: I saw that.
Speaker 2: I got the telegram and then Entertainment Weekly named it
Speaker 2: the number three of the top five hundred websites. Wow
Speaker 2: of the year twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: I'm still surprised by that I know so good.
Speaker 2: So anyway, ridiculous Crime dot com. We're at Ridiculous Crime
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Speaker 2: gmail dot com. Please download the iheartapp and leave us
Speaker 2: a talk back because I love them reach out. Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced
Speaker 2: and edited by Pokemon Wrangler to the stars Dave Coustin
Speaker 2: starring Annals Rutger as Judith. Research is by Bulbosor Trainer
Speaker 2: Marisa Brown and Sharmander Breeder Andrea Song Sharpened Hear. The
Speaker 2: Themes as Long is by Thomas Blastoy's is My Spirit
Speaker 2: Animal Lee and Travis Have you seen my light Up?
Speaker 2: Pikachew Hot Dutton post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.
Speaker 2: Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive
Speaker 2: producers are Ben Wigglypuff Bowlin and Noel Jigglypuff Brown. Hey well,
Speaker 2: do it's ridiculous Pokemon you dig.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
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