Japanese Crime Syndicates Reportedly Launder Money Using Pokémon Cards

The Pokémon Trading Card Game has grown so valuable that Japanese crime syndicates are reportedly using it to launder money.

The former head of a crime syndicate told Shunkan Gendai Online, translated by Automaton, that his organization used Pokémon cards as a means of transporting stolen money abroad.

The cards being so small, literally the size of a regular playing card, but holding so much value allowed them to be easily bought, transported, and sold abroad, the crime leader said. Some Pokémon cards are indeed incredibly valuable. The record holder sold for more than $5 million but even some cards in regular packs are worth hundreds of dollars or more.

The crime syndicate used well-documented methods of finding these expensive cards too, which are usually the ones with lots of shiny foiling. Thanks to this, advanced metal detectors are able to pick up the foiling from outside the pack, or incredibly sensitive scales can pick up incremental increases in weight.

This allows the crime syndicate to buy packs in bulk using their illegaly obtained cash, open all with actual value, and then re-sell the remaining ones at cost.

Perhaps inspired by Team Rocket, Pokémon cards and crime have long gone hand-in-hand, though plain theft appears to be at the forefront of criminals’ exploits. Tokyo police reported an unprecedented number of trading card thefts in the latter half of 2022, and there are many high profile examples making headlines.

An independent gaming store in Minnesota reportedly had around $250,000 worth of Pokémon merchandise stolen in February 2022, for example, and one month later, again in Tokyo, a man was arrested for allegedly launching a literal heist in order to steal the treasured cards.

Making the most of a bad situation, a trading card shop in California also posted a video of thieves who stole 35,000 Pokémon cards from them in January 2024 and mocked them for not knowing what to take.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.