Pokémon cards stolen in three overnight break-ins of Wake County game stores
Shortly before 3 a.m. last Saturday, an individual smashed the front window of Raleigh’s Hidden Block Games and cleared out several shelves of valuable Pokémon cards near the front entrance.
The burglar carried away between 15 and 25 cards worth a few thousand dollars in total, store co-owner Jeremy Smith said, with the priciest stolen item marketed at $1,000.
“They just took Pokémon cards,” Smith said. “It all comes back to Pokémon cards.”
Two days earlier, around the same time of morning, someone smashed the glass door of Crunch Time Sports Cards in Raleigh. They bypassed rare sports trading cards and scooped roughly $6,000 worth of Pokémon cards into a bag, the store’s co-owner said. Then this past Thursday, again around 3 a.m., a Pokémon card thief struck another Wake County store as New World Toys and Collectibles in Garner, its owner said, had roughly $2,500 in Pokémon cards pilfered.
Three stores hit within one week. While each sells varied collectible cards and game memorabilia, Pokémon cards have far-and-away the hottest demand. “Nuclear hot,” said Mike Redlin of New World Toys.
“Pokémon is so big that I think we primarily do 85 to 90% of our business (as) Pokémon now,” said Joe Lisa, Crunch Time’s co-owner.
The market for these colorful, glossy cards with animated characters is being driven by a mix of nostalgic longtime fans (the Japanese brand turns 30 next year), new young fans, and an influx of retail investors who try to flip the cards for big bucks online. Rare cards with the right grading can fetch thousands.
“It’s enough for someone to break into a store and steal the singles, instead of opening the cash register,” Smith said. “They didn’t even try to open my cash register. They just grabbed Pokémon cards.”
The Triangle is the latest scene of a nationwide Pokémon card crime wave that has recently hit retailers in Baltimore, Boston, Detroit and Dallas. But only Raleigh has the distinction of being home to the largest U.S. printer of Pokémon cards — Millenium Print Group — which operates a half-dozen highly protected facilities near Research Triangle Park, in both Wake and Durham counties. The company only has production sites in North Carolina and the Netherlands.
On its website, Millennium says its facilities are guarded 24/7 and have CCTV monitoring “for the safety of our employees as well as the protection of our clients’ work.”
Millennium employees, Smith previously told The News & Observer, have visited Hidden Block Games to resell Pokémon merchandise they have received as company gifts, including tchotchkes and larger items like Pikachu-themed skateboards. But never cards.
“They’re being printed more than they ever have,” Smith said. “There’s just more people that want them.” More sellers have entered the Triangle to match the demand, with both New World Toys and Crunch Time opening last year.
Smith says he’ll keep an eye on pawn shops and card trading platforms for his stolen merchandise but believes the odds of locating the cards — and the Pokémon Burglar — are long. For now, he and the other Wake County retail victims said they’ll enhance security.
This story was originally published October 11, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
