Burglars Make Off With Rare Pokemon Cards After Cutting Through Gaming Store Wall

A pair of thieves stole $13,000 in rare Pokemon cards and other high-end collectibles from a California hobby shop after busting in through the business’s wall.

The duo first broke into a vacant storefront in Hemet — about 90 miles east of Los Angeles — around 5:30 a.m. May 25, then smashed through a shared wall, according to a Facebook post by burgled business Pozjoker Games.

As one of the crooks acted as a lookout, the other climbed into the hobby store and cleared out collectibles from a display case, local outlet KNBC reported.

“They were in and out within 3 minutes and we arrived shortly after they left,” according to the Facebook post, which included a surveillance image of one suspect. “They had a bolt cutter and a mallet that they used to get in.”

In addition to a surveillance image of one suspect, the post featured shots of the stolen items. They include rare, graded cards dating back to the Pokemon card boom of the late 1990s.

The store’s owner, Pierre Cepeda, told KNBC that his accounting put the hit to his store in five figures.

“I looked up every card and made a full log of everything, and he took about $13,000 worth of stuff,” he said.

Cepeda said that the area has seen a number of recent commercial break-ins, and the store’s Facebook post indicated that it had been targeted by a near-identical burglary bid years ago.