A professional Pokémon card collector was robbed at gunpoint in his home near Bergerac, France, on Tuesday, losing cards worth €300,000. The incident, the largest of its kind in the country, is part of a global wave of thefts. Swedish collector Amar Palm voiced concern over the trend.
In Prigonrieux near Bergerac in southwestern France, a masked man rang the doorbell at collector Myke Petel's home on Tuesday, pretending to be a delivery person. He pointed a gun at Petel, ordered him to lie on the floor, and taped him up. An accomplice soon arrived. The thieves stole Pokémon cards and cases worth €300,000, equivalent to about 3.2 million kronor, from his storage room.
Petel told Sud-Ouest: “A man rang the doorbell and pretended to be a delivery guy.” The Bergerac prosecutor's office has opened an investigation. The robbers first searched for cash or a safe but targeted the cards.
The case is part of a global theft wave. Earlier this year, a Pokémon shop in New York was robbed of cards worth about one million kronor. Last week, a shop in Newark, Nottinghamshire, was hit twice for cards worth hundreds of pounds. Owner Katherina Mayer decided to stop selling them and told BBC: “I thought to myself – this is not worth it. It's just cards.”
In Sweden, a gang stole cards worth one million kronor from game stores in Göteborg and Varberg in July last year. Collector Amar Palm knows of several victims and said: “It is definitely a concern.” He takes security measures at events and advises: “One of the most important things is not to keep them at home.” Some cards have sold for up to 147 million kronor.