Gotta Catch Em All: Pokémon Theft

Pokémon! The cards, the games, the Go, the cartoons, the…theft? Oh yeah, when collectibles get pricey, criminals come out of the woodwork, even the Yakuza. These cards are big money these days, and some people will do anything to steal 'em all. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zaren Hey, Yes, over here.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
I wasn't napping.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's cool, it's fine.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
I was to my eyes were awake.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's my eyes are too small for this. You know
it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Yeah, I do. Thank god you asked me. Those over
here just nap, not napping, waiting for you to ask
me that you know the actor Oscar Isaac, Yeah, you
like him podammer and in the Star Wars movies.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Also, uh was it but the cat and the in
one of my there you go, Davis? Okay, so he's
an actual, real musician. Yeah, not just.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Llewell and Davis be saying on the on the soundtrack. Yeah,
he's good, He's really good.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Did you know he used to be in bands?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Really?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
You should see that. He was in SKA bands, waits sco.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Bands with great names like Petrified Frogs and Closet Heterosexuals.
Oh god, the worms.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
But also they're like fifteen people on stage?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Is a sad Elizabeth answer. That question answers itself. So also,
though he was successful as a ska band artist, he
was the lead singer. In case you wanted wondering where
he was not in like the horn section. Yeah, he's
up front, knees up. Yeah. So uh. He actually opened
for Green Day and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones when he
was a member of the group The Blinking Underdogs.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
The Blinking Underdogs. The nineties were a wild time. I
think everyone was in a SKA band, whether they knew
it or not. That was in tune.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
I didn't even know.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I found out.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, I saw pictures. I was like, what am I
doing on stage? Later?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, that is ridiculous. I love that he was in
a SKO band. But you know what else is ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (01:37):
What else is religious? What else is ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Pokemon? Pokemon is ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Oh yeah, that yellow guy. Yeah totally.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
and cons It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
one hundred percent ridiculous. No, you heard that, that's right.
The Yakuzas sarin Ah, Yes, my friends go on. It's
a criminal organization. You didn't think would come up in
our conversations about ridiculous crimes, not from you, No, well,

(02:28):
not that they don't commit ridiculous crimes. They're just so murdery.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah, it's tough one because of all the kind of.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Like the Italian and American mafias, or like outlaw biker gangs,
which I love to talk about, but I can't love
to hang out with. I love to be in one,
but I you know, the Yakuza. I am going to
talk to you about them today.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
I'm so curious how you're going to avoid this parts.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Let's pretend that you've never heard of them. Okay, let
me fill you in.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Is this a boy band?

Speaker 2 (02:55):
I'm going a woman'splaining the Yakuza. Yes. So basically it's
Japanese organized crime serena. Yeah. So the cops call them
organized crime or violent groups is the term they use.
They call themselves chivalrous organizations, gentlemen's club and like. For
a while there they operated out of really well marked offices,

(03:17):
and sometimes there were signs outside with the symbols of
their trade.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Japanese opera lovers.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Like samurai swords or like a lantern, and like films
cartoons made them out to be noble outlaws with his
code of honor.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
The Yuza were talking about about them.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Say it with me again. Yakuza yakuzza.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
They do jacuzzi, but it's a little more.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Menacence adjacent jacuzzi adjacent Yakuza. They do have a very
strict code, both for like hierarchy and for their conducts.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Okay, yes, I've heard this.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
And many of them, many of them have sick ass
tattoos all over their bodies. I've also heard this just now,
just learning this. But you can't see them because they
wear sick ass suits.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
That's a good.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah. They pull fraud, they run drugs and guns. They
engage in human trafficking and murder for hire. It sounds
like they have a large talk about it parties, a
big one. Yeah, but you know, they also provide disaster
relief after major earthquakes.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Oh, I'm just hearing about this now from you. This
is interesting. It's like Fukushima you're talking about all.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
That's the thing about. Yeah, the mafia and outlaw biker gangs,
like they do stuff that supports their communities while also
doing things that destroy their communities.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Oh, I like Capone with the free turkeys.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, Thanksgiving turkey giveaways and arson, Yeah, toy drives and
drive bys.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
So in the nineteen sixties, there were hundreds of thousands
of members of the Yakuza. Hundreds of thousands not true today, Wow,
membership is way down.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Last year just over twenty thousand. Whoa, Yeah, that's just
a third of what it was twenty years ago.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah, so you didn't know that. It did not at all.
And so part of it is that the cops really
cracked down. Okay, So there was legislation.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
I saw Black Rain with Michael Douglas. We should probably
do something about it.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
It's gone to the point where pointing.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Hello, it's a great movie.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
So they passed legislation that bars members from opening bank accounts,
renting apartments, buying cell phones, creating insurance.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
So they did like the whole gang interdiction.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Thing radius and then older members were dying off of course,
and you know it's the old debtor in jail thing
and to.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Replace younger ones if you've got that with your bosses.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
But the crime must go on. So what does an
organization do when they don't have enough members to carry
out the necessary criminal activity?

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Elizabeth, This is a fascinating conunder. What does say a
yak is a boss do when he doesn't have the
necessary criminals to carry out his criminal operation enter the
gig economy.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yes, there's this thing to Couru. Here's how the Guardian
newspaper characterizes them. Oh god quote formed by the characters
for anonymous and fluid. The term to Couru refers and
I know I'm not saying that correctly, and I heardy
apologies to the Japanese refers to ad hoc groups formed

(06:05):
to commit crimes where members often don't know each other,
or those planning and directing their activities. They are distinct
from the Yukuza and less hierarchical, usually with loose organizational
structures above those carrying out crimes ranging from robberies and
frauds to assaults and murders. So they're basically like temp workers'ps. Yes,
they float around, they commit the crimes and they move along.

(06:28):
And this is the group that's doing the major crimes
in Japan now, and the Yakuza they're pulling smaller and
smaller jobs like pettier crimes. One of those crimes that
the Yukuza is doing stealing Pokemon cards, which is what
I am all about today, Pokemon crime.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
We were just talking about that.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, so you got me thinking about it when you
told the story of the dude who robbed the armored card.
He tried to get away in the raft and the creek,
and he later went on to counterfeit. So think of
this episode as the spiritual sibling of our Batman episode,
because it kind of came to me in much the
same way. I've mentioned that I watched my nephew every Saturday, Yes,

(07:09):
highlight of my week. As a result of this arrangement,
I have a lot of toys in my house.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
Shout out to your nephew.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Shout out to him, and for a while, they're the
majority where Batman toys, and that remains true. Okay, but
there's an up and comer, a little yellow fella real Pikachu.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Oh you entered that phase?

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Did you? Did you know that, according to comic book
dot com, pokem on is the highest grossing IP and
intellectual property in the entertainment world.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, actually I did know that because it's it is
so enormous.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
It's huge. There are video games, cartoons and then the
cars trading car backbone.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Of hats with a little like press the button and
it flaps.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
I mean the target audience is five to twelve. Okay,
but you and I both know that people a lot
older stick with it.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, you can be like a quadruple member of the
target audience four times over.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Well, it's like and like Harry Potter, they do it
when they should know better.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
M h.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
I am a known Harry Potter hater. Yes, I have
not read a book or seen.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
She hates Harry Potter.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
But see, I've seen enough of this whole thing to
pity adults who are into it. So I figure I
got the furries after me, why not add the Harry Potter.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
And you were ahead of the curve in the Harry Potter.
I mean a lot of people are coming around regretting
tattoos and so forth, and there you are just looking
smart and you're not being smug about it.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I'd i am, but I just the lesson is to yeh,
go on. So the corporate ownership structure of Pokemon is weird.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Well, most ips are owned by one company usually, and
Pokemon is actually jointly owned by three Nintendo, game Freak
and then Creatures, and so game Freak does all the
like main role playing games, which are then published by
Nintendo exclusively for their consoles, and then Creatures does all

(08:56):
the trading card games that they this TCGs is theyre
called and then the related merch and they develop spinoff titles.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Oh, they do merchan cards.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
So do you know where the name Pokemon comes from?

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Hey on, I'm guessing from some kind of like we
were really into Jamaica at the time, and we were like, oh,
but we also really love eating poke. Why don't we
put our two loves together poke and like, hame on
a Pokemon from.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
A poke a Hawaiian poke shop in Jamaica. Hey on, No,
it's the original full name of the franchise's Pocket Monsters,
Poke and Mond.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Totally.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
There you go. And so if you use Pokemon as
a noun, which I think you probably should, I don't
know how.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
To use it as I want to go Pokemon that
meal over there? See those noodles about to be Pokemon up.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Singular and plural forms are the same, okay, And that
goes and that goes for all the individual species names
as well. So if you say one Pokemon or twelve
Pokemon or one Pikachu and nine million p ka chew,
I got you. Yeah, And the official pronunciation is Pokemon
and then or you can also officially say pokemonkemon, or

(10:09):
if you're a jerk like me, you like to irritate people,
you can say Pokemon.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
What if I just want to call it pokemon.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
You can call it pokemon, poke, Pokemon. That's the new Okay,
So that's the alternative that I needed more information, So
I went to pokemon dot com and I read the
Pokemon basics page for parents. Lord, here's what they say
under what are Pokemon?

Speaker 3 (10:32):
These are answers for parents. Yeah, they're trying to like
get schooled on what their kids are too.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
So they're like, hey, Siri, what are pokemon? Quote. In
the world of Pokemon, Pokemon are creatures of all shapes
and sizes who live alongside humans. People known as Pokemon trainers,
form lasting friendships with their Pokemon partners, and as a team,
they go on adventures trained to improve their skills and
battle in friendly competitions. During their journeys, Pookemon grow and

(11:01):
become more experienced, and even on occasion, evolve in just
stronger Pokemon. Ask a child what their favorite Pokemon is
and you're bound to get an enthusiastic response. There are
over a thousand Pokemon for you and your child to
discover together Shizon's my favorite amazing story. Well, so like

(11:24):
this is one hundred percent of kid thing like that
that from the source. They're like, this is for kids. Well,
so okay, like I said, my nephew has discovered Pokemon.
He has a kid, and he's a kid. He's five.
He has some cards, but mostly he's into Pikachu. Course,
just the image, just the image of it. And right now,
his his Pokemon world is like stuffies and those decorations

(11:47):
on crocs and like a couple of cards from a
McDonald's happy Mail. That's like, there's probably more, but I
wasn't paying attention. Zaren. You actually saw him the other
day and you were asking him how he would rob
a bank and what he did with the money. And
that got me thinking, okay, conversation well, and I wasn't
thinking about how appropriate your conversations may or may not
be with kids. It got me thinking about Pokemon crime.

(12:12):
So I looked it up and apparently there's a crime
that takes place in the world of Pokemon. But when
I started reading about it, my eyes glazed over in
my mind wandered, kind of like when you start talking
about your ridiculous takeswak I know that. Look, but then
I saw a word that grabbed my attention.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
What was it?

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeahkuza, Oh hey, I'm just learning about that. Not very
kid friendly, but just as most intellectual property aimed at
kids these days, Pokemon has been co opted or never
grown out of, by plenty of adults. And adults like
to collect things, which is the goal of Pokemon, and
they have jobs, so they have money, right, And you
made that really a stude observation recently about collectors and
people collecting things in order to hang on to the

(12:52):
past and memory.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Oh I said that.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
You did say that, and that holds true for Pokemon cars.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Okay, yeah, definitely I could see that.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah. So when people collect things that gives them monetary value,
sometimes rare things obviously have more worth. Pokemon cards no different.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
And childhood things that you can buy like Arson Wells
and Citizen Kane.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yes, exactly, exactly. So. The most expensive Pokemon card ever
sold was the nineteen ninety eight illustrator Pikachu card with
a ten rating, and you covered that when we talked
about the Bad Guy Collector. It was sold in twenty
twenty two for five million, two hundred and seventy eight
thousand dollars to Logan Paul guy the boxer Dinge no,

(13:35):
the brother of the oh guy that's going to fight
Mike Tyson. They both have such punchable face.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
They're just one thing to me.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I hope that Mike Tyson hits Jake Paul so hard
that it gives Logan Paul brain. That's what I'm hoping for.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Is that mean?

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Is that too violent? What's amazing? I am in the
summer of dark Elizabeth. I'm noticing I've turned really I
may no friends anymore. And when the world eases up,
I'm going to go back to being super nice. So
that I'm certified boogeyman, certified psychopath right now? Oh yeah, anyway,

(14:11):
Logan Paul. So, he bought a Pokemon card for more
than five million dollars, and that's an anomaly in terms
of pricing. That's not like, Yeah, the next highest value
card was the nineteen ninety seven Cherizard. That's when you
like top Sun Blue Back also also had the grade

(14:33):
of PSA ten that's sold in January of twenty twenty
one for just under five hundred thousand dollars. Okay, so
I got ripped off, I ripped off. But that's not
ages five to twelve money. No, it is not. That's
grown folks who should know better. Yeah, that is not
like some of the prices aren't really holding Toothairy. That's
the one who gives your money Toothair. The third most

(14:57):
expensive card sale was the nineteen ninety nine first edition
Shadowless Holographic shars Are number four.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Oh of course, Yeah, that Shadowless Sharzar.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, that whole thing. So that's March twenty twenty two
for four hundred and twenty thousand dollars for twenty bro.
But another card like Smoking, also rated ten, sold in
February of this year for just one hundred and sixty
eight thousands.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
The price is going down.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
That one, it was, but not really. But it's still
not ages five to twelve mon, No, not at all.
It's just a bad investment. So back to the Yakuza,
the boat of cards. I don't think they particularly cared
about the Pokemon what cards. No, they cared about stealing
something valuable there, and they weren't super fan.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
They weren't like cultural protectors.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
No, they didn't have Pikachu tattoos in the sleeve. Yeah,
so they cause they didn't concern themselves with petty crime,
but the to Koryu they were pulling bigger jobs now,
and that left people like Keita Saito doing things like
stealing Pokemon cards and not half a mill cards, sixteen

(15:59):
hundred dollars worth of cards?

Speaker 3 (16:01):
What? Yeah, and this is one of the gig workers.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
No, this is a yakuza. Oh, actually yakuza. The guy
I'm talking about, he's not the Keita Saito, who's the
Japanese actor who was in Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. Okay,
he's the Keita Saito who is the leader of the
Teknagawa Gang.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Oh, the Tokenawa Gang.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yes, and that's a faction of the second largest yukuza syndicate,
the Sumyoshi Kai.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Ah see, I only know the Tokenagawa from the Shogun era.
But yeah, well this is I'm kidding.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
So how the mighty have fallen? Yeah, telling Spectator magazine said, quote,
it's as if Don Corleone had been reduced to running
a shell game. Watch the ball which Kep is in
under on some New York Backstreet man.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
So uh, showing like fraudulent olive oil.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Get Tokyo Police announced the arrest of Saito earlier this year.
Back in twenty twenty two, he broke into a home.
Twenty nine items were stolen during the robbery, and that
included twenty five valuable pokemonk and some lunch money. Yeah, basically,
And they also arrested another guy in connection with the
break in. He wasn't tied to Yakuza, but it makes
me wonder if he was one of the gig workers.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, he's still a candy dish.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah. So the cops are still looking for a couple
other guys involved. But the big takeaway, thank you for.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Ask what is the big takeaway, Elizabeth?

Speaker 2 (17:13):
It's the Yakuza lieutenant got busted for trying to sell
hot bulbosore cards and that tells you that they've fallen
in power. Oh god, Yeah, Pokemon have grown in value.
Waited Oh wow, balance the scale. Yeah, and in Japan,
it's not just the Yakuza stealing Pokemon cards. That's where
they're from. By the way, the Pokemon.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
Pokemons from Japan. Yeah, and the Yukuza they're from Japan.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, hand and hand cultural production. No. A couple of
years ago, there was a Pokemon crime spree sweeping Japan.
In August of twenty twenty two, thieves lifted around five
hundred and forty cards worth about two hundred thousand dollars
from a shop in Tokyo.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
Five hundred and forty. They're going to flood the market.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah for the best. Was this this Japanese guy who
got busted for repelling down a bill right in order
to steal Pokemon cards?

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Oh my, is he a gig worker?

Speaker 2 (17:58):
No safety harness, just vibe. No, he was an it
worker in Tokyo and in March of twenty twenty one,
he used a rope to sended a six story building
to steal about eighty trading cards worth more than nine
thousand dollars. And then he also found two thousand dollars
in cash. And apparently he was desperate to get out
of debt that he'd created for himself. It sounds like

(18:18):
a scary way to try and get some quick cat.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Oh, he's like a movie henchman like kind of crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
This is what he told the cops quote. I was
in my high school's rock climbing club, so I wasn't
afraid of heights. Okay, yeah, So the police identified him
using surveillance footage. He gets arrested. They didn't say which
Pokemon were taken or their condition upon recovery. But you
know what, thoughts and prayers, prayer, Let's take a break.
When we come back, we're going to look into more
card theft and other Pokemon misadventures.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
Yeah, Elizabeth Zareny, Yeah you did Pokemon.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
Okay, Pokemon.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Pokemon theft isn't just a japan thing.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
I bet not. I bet it goes down here too.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
If there's one thing the good old us of A
knows how to export its ridiculous card.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
I knew it.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
And what's more American and criminal than Walmart, USA, USA.
July twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, Ohio's Bowling Green police
were called to Walmart on West Gypsy Lane Road. There
were two people inside the store stocking up on Pokemon cards,
and Walmart employees they watched the pair and they who

(19:41):
happened to be wearing black masks, and yet the employees
recognized them as a man and a woman who's stolen
from Walmart in the past. So the man and the
woman they used the automotive entrance to get into the store, okay,
and they just started loading up on Pokemon cards. And
a cop parked outside, so that you know, the employees
call cop comes. He parks outside the automotive.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
These aren't special, these are just in the normal with
the gum.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah. He gets out of his car. The cop does.
He looks around the corner of the building, sees the
suspects red Chevy with a broken side window covered in
plastic the old probable cosmobiles.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
They have cardboard.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
It was a ready season. A second officer parked across
the street and a third park down the road. Boys,
we got ourselves a take down.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
I'm telling you. Perimeter security.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
So dispatch told the cops that the store's loss prevention
had lost sight of the duo, and that's when the
cop parked near the building saw the busted up Chevy
driving toward the exit and passed the officer who was
parked across the street. Also, so the two people seen
in the vehicle matched the description given by the employee
the cops. They tried to pull the Chevy over a
couple of blocks away, but them duke boys weren't all

(20:50):
about that, so they took off. The Chevy takes off.
The cops hit the blues and twos the losses.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
They were born.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
It happened to make their way anyway. They know how
I can just start singing the whole thing. So anyway,
the Chevy Chevy gets onto the freeway starts going speeds
over one hundred and five miles an hour.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
For pokemon cars.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, they must have had a couple of them rated
tens in there, right. So the chase goes on a
couple of cars driving up on the shoulders both right
and left to get around heavy traffic. Then they get
off the freeway, they spin out and then continue down
another road. Sure they would like slow for a stop sign,
but not fully right, No, just a Chevy's say it's

(21:36):
the shovvyest like entification. They didn't fully stop. Add that
to the charges. And then they took off it over
one hundred miles an hour again I love Yeah, And
at that point the officer lost sight of the vehicle
and they had to terminate the pursuit.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 2 (21:51):
The cops were wiped out, Like, oh, how that took
it out of me. They go back to the station
to regroup and like think this out, kind of just
catch a breath, and and they're given photos of the
store surveillance and they look and they're like, that's Nicholas
Starkey and Kayla Cannaba. They're frequent flyers. They know they're like,
I know them. So those who must have grabbed some

(22:12):
serious loot from the Walmart, like forget great value and
faded glory stuff. They went for Pokemon of course. Yeah,
how much of the good stuff did they grab?

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Lord, dollars. According to the police report, two hundred and
eighty four dollars in merchandise was taken from the No,
that's the saddest trombone right there, and then they got busted.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Saddest misdemeanor.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Twenty twenty two. That was a rough year for Pokemon cards.
I keep bringing it up. Why let's do a little
side quest. Oh, I've been talking about the value of
the cards and how they for the most part.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Keep going talk about the aesthetic.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, well not yet and some of them, some of
the cards are super rare, which makes them even more valuable. Obviously.
What does the Pokemon company think about all this?

Speaker 3 (22:56):
Elizabeth? I was curious with all of this. You know, Oh,
we make cards, some of them, we make a lot
of some we make a few of What do they
think about that? The value creation.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
They are aware, they are not happy. Oddly enough, remember
they want this to be for kids, and they're actively
trying to curb the speculation.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
That's cool.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, See, it's been tough to get Pokemon cards for
the past few years. I bet because right around their
twenty fifth anniversary the cards got really popular again. And so,
like you take this combination of pandemic boredom, oh right, nostalgia,
and then the notion that like, I've got all these
cards in my mom's garage that might make me rich,

(23:36):
I'm sitting on wealth. Old and new Pokemon cards start
selling out as soon as they hit store shelves. Wow, Like,
it's just crazy. They told you my nephew had some
from a McDonald's Happy Meal. People were buying stole them,
he stole them from another kid people at your request.
People were buying those burgers just for the special cards.

(23:56):
They're like, I'll take six Happy Meals and just for
the car cards.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
I bet they threw the food away with that, thinking.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
To say, probably a hate waste of food, theft and
crazy customer behavior. When the new cards dropped got so
bad that Target took the cards off their shelves and
only sold them online.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 2 (24:16):
I'm not kidding you right now.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
You people can't have these. Get away from us. Don't
even come into our store. We don't have them.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, you're a grown ass people acting crazy. Card grading
services like the one here. I was thinking they had
so many requests for grading from collectors that they had
to pause new submissions in order to get through their backlog.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 2 (24:34):
No, So the Pokemon company sees this, Yeah, this is
how they responded. Quote, We're aware that some fans are
experiencing difficulties purchasing certain Pokemon Trading card game products due
to the very high demand. They said this in a tweet.
In response, we are reprinting impacted products at maximum capacity.
More fans can enjoy the Pokemon TCG.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
I was just about to say, they control the production.
How do they flood the zone?

Speaker 2 (25:01):
What's maximum capacity? We're wondering, we're sitting out here. In
twenty twenty two, the company produced more than nine billion
with a B cards, whole ninety billion as many as
the year before, when they made three point seven billion cards.
They usually print between one and two billion cards a year,

(25:23):
and that means that more than forty five billion cards
have been produced since the game launched, nine billion in
twenty twenty two.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
It's a lot of ink.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
More than a quarter of all Pokemon cards printed were
produced from twenty twenty to twenty twenty two. Yeah, more
than a quarter. So that's why we see this twenty
twenty two uptick one place that ticked on up.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
I'm sure the fans would just come up with a
whole This is a pre twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Two That's exactly what happened. Yeah, and so punch Out Gaming,
Forest Lake, Minnesota, little shop. In February of twenty twenty two,
a thief broke into a vacant store next door to
punch Out Gaming and punched out. Broke through the sheared
wall like some sort of crazy coolid. They punched in.
Over the course of about two hours, the dude emptied

(26:11):
out two entire storage rooms full of Pokemon products. Wow,
and the store's alarm never went off because it was
only the door. Robber man never went in or out
of a door. And how much Pokemon? Wait, did this
guy move one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of merchandise?

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Damn?

Speaker 2 (26:28):
The owner of the store said quote, he must have
had help because there were a lot of boxes, and
according to Fox nine, who interviewed him, quote, the gaming
store has been opened for eight years and the theft
has been a big hit to the small, family owned business. Quote.
I realized how much money, product and time we put
into it, and I just started crying. I can't recover
this product because our distributors don't have any so even

(26:51):
with the insurance money, that doesn't do us any good,
said Johnson. Though, yeah, but all was not lost, Oh good.
Apparently the whole online Pokemon community rallied around the store
and kept an eye open for online listings that might
be selling the stolen goods. And then the cops were
able to identify the purpse. Well not not the cops,

(27:11):
per se. Online sleuths identified the men because they had
surveillance footage right, and the guy was wearing a mask,
and then all these people online did this reconstruction of
what his face would look like and it's hilarious looking.
I'll put it in there. Oh yeah, so they and
then once they idem, then the cops got the nail

(27:34):
in the coffin DNA.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 2 (27:37):
I'm serious of it? Turns out. I guess they from
the shop and they figured, okay, we had the people
are like, we've identified a Matthew Cooper's and then this guy,
Dustin Witturn. They worked together to break into the store.
They used a knife to cut through the drywall. They
creeped in through the hole, stole the cards and the merchandise.

(27:58):
Somewhere along the line they left DNA. I'm impressed that
police there used that technology for a burglary. That's above
and beyond, and I love it.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
I know you're always about touch DNA.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
I am. They got charged with third degree burglary and
then the store they you know, upgraded their security alarms
that monitored more than the door. They also leased the
space next door where they broke in, and they made
it into a new gaming area. Well look at that
happy ending all the way around. One another happy ending.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
I love Pokemon happy endings.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
This one has spoiler alert happy ending. So it was
a quiet day recently at pro Play Games in Miami.
It's a little shop that's located in one of those
two story strip malls on a busy multi lane avenue.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
I can picture it.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Well, yeah, the strip mall is in it's in a
huge complex that makes sort of an L shape coming
off a big public.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
Smart imagine coral colored paint.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
I like publics. I wish we had them out here.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah, they're good.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
The recently defunct Florida Career College looks to have taken
up most of the top floor of one half of
the complex. There's a dentist's office, a nail salon, a
smoke shop, a Chinese restaurant, a place does concealed gun permits.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
This is so Florida.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Oh, it is freestyle fighting academy.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Like I'm visiting family. This is amazing freestyle fighting academy.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Oh I heard you and pro play games.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah all together.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Sure, a lot more, but you get the picture. Speaking
of picture, yes, zarens Oh, yeah, I want you to
picture it. It's a warm May day in Miami. You're
an eight year old girl. Your mom was in the
phlebotomy program at Florida Career College, but the whole place
closed down a few months ago after the FEDS busted
them for cooking the enrollment in federal financial aid books.

(29:40):
You're standing outside the college on the outdoor second floor
walkway of the shopping center where the college is located.
Traffic whizzes by while you both wait for someone to
come and open the door. Your mom and a handful
of other students have been told they can come by
today to empty out lockers they had in the medical
training area, and they're also hoping to get their hands
on hard copies of their transcript. The whole thing has

(30:00):
been a nightmare. You're a patient, helpful girl. As the
door opens and a former administrator ushers the students in,
your mom turns to you and hands you a ten
dollars bill that's way more than she normally would give you,
and you aren't sure she can afford it. You hesitate,
and she gently caresses the top of your head and
tells you to go down to the gaming shop in
the corner. They have Pokemon cards, and she says you
can get some. Wait there and she'll come and get

(30:22):
you in she's done, You smile and skip down the
outdoor walkway toward pro play games. You went in there
once before when you had to go with your mom
for her to go to school. The people in there
are super nice. The door chimes as you walk in,
and the lady behind the counter smiles and greets you.
You say hello, and put your hands in your pockets,
just like your mom told you. Look, don't touch, not

(30:43):
until you're ready to take something up to the counter.
A pop song plays faintly in the sound system as
you peruse a rack of Pokemon card packs. You can't
see what's inside them anyway, so it's no problem to
just look at the outside. You check the prices and
move on cataloging the ones you may come back for.
You walk over by the counter and look at some
one of the comic book titles they have. Glancing over
at the case full of multi sided dice, you think

(31:05):
that maybe when you're older, you'll be able to play
games that use those, but for now, it's a little
too complicated. A man walks up to the counter and
asks to look at a binder full of Pokemon cards
kept behind the clerk. She smiles and lays the binder
down on the counter. You inch closer to get a
look at some of the special cards. There. That's a
big binder, you whisper to yourself. The clerk hears you
holds three thousand cards, she says, you whistle. Impressed with that,

(31:29):
You peer into the binder and see bright colors and
hologram edges, and you think about where you'd put those
special cards if you had them. You keep them in
that cool cigar box your grandpa gave you, the one
that smells faintly of floral tobacco. The customer looks at
the binder and then quickly closes it. He scoops it
up and heads for the door. Hey you yell, drop
the stuff, yells the woman behind the counter. The man

(31:50):
just laughs and walks away the door chiming is he exits.
There's a couple other people in the store, and they
follow the man out, yelling for him to stop. The
owner of the shop comes out of the back and
heads for the door. You go to follow, but the
clerk calls you back. You stay here, she says. Outside
the store, a group has formed around the man with
the binder. They shout for him to drop the goods,
to stop, to hand it over. You press your face

(32:10):
to the glass window to get a look at the action.
They're muffled shouting is both scary and exciting. The man
pulls a pair of pliers from his pocket and makes
stabbing motions at the people around him. They all gasp.
Then the guy takes off down the stairs toward the
parking lot. His feet hit the hot, black assphalt and
he starts to run, but not particularly fast. The owner
of the store, still at the top of the stairs,

(32:31):
yell stop, saef help. It's like something out of an
old movie. You walk out the door of the shop
and peer over the railing, watching as the guy trots away.
Remember how I told you that freestyle fighting academy was
located in this shopping center. Well, the good folks there here.
The owners cries for help. Two guys on their way
in to teach jiu jitsu at the academy see the

(32:51):
man with the binder. They chase after him, yelling for
him to stop. They easily catch up with him and
tag him to the ground. That's got to hurt, you think.
You look up above you and see that there's a
security camera aimed right at the action. That'll come in
handy later, you think. By this time, the owner and
other bystanders have reached the man with the binder. The
two martial arts coaches have me pinned down, and others

(33:13):
join in holding the thief to the ground. You hear
sirens approaching. You better get back over to your mom.
She'll be worried. You walk back along the outdoor covered
walkway and figure you'll wait outside the door for your mom.
Just as you arrive, the door opens and she walks out.
She's smiling. She tells you that one of the other
students hooked her up with a job at a doctor's
office and they'll help her finish her certification. You haven't

(33:33):
seen her this relieved and happy in a long time.
She asked, if you got anything good? Nope, you say
anything interesting? Nope, you say You hand her back the
ten dollars bill, take her hand, and walk in the
opposite direction of the police action to her car. She's
none the wiser, nothing to worry her today.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, I love that. I love community actions.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
So this guy, Jesse L. Manfer All Man for All, Yeah,
he tried to walk out of that shop with three
thousand Pokemon cards.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
Sarah, what's your new fake name of choice? You mean me,
mister man for All.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
That was thirty thousand dollars worth of cards that he
had in that ninth Yeah. And so he gets booked
into jail on charges of grand theft and aggravated assault,
and the day was saved. It's like something out of
a comic book or a cool game. Yes, there's footage.
I'm going to have the interns put that on Instagram too.
Let's pause here for some ads, and when we come

(34:28):
back more Pokemon zaren. So we've established the Pokemon cards

(34:55):
easy to steal. It's a lucrative lift. You know what,
the most valuable Pokemon cards. It's your favorite, not just
for trading and collecting, what for like sex guys, strip
Pokemon trip Pokemon University University of Georgia, Athens police officers

(35:16):
were dispatched to Lipscomb Hall on August nineteenth, twenty twenty two.
That's our big year, University of Georgia, twenty twenty two,
one eight am one. They got called on a report
from an employee that a student was throwing up in
the hall and bedroom, which I don't believe that warrants
a call to the cops, but that's an interesting call.

(35:36):
Not a party school. So officers they go to the
student's dorm and they find him unconscious and laying on
his bed and his roommate's laying on the other bed. Okay,
so they just passed out. The cops try to talk
to the student, but he wouldn't wake up, and the
officer just like shakes him, shakes and still doesn't wake up.
They checked his pulse normal.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Okay, so he's a lot yeah, like Jimi Hendrix.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
There's one groups. So they just keep like shaking him.
They feel he's got a pulse, so they just keep
shaking him, and finally he wakes up and he's all disoriented.
This is all in the police report. With some quick
on the spot investigation, the cops determined that the student
was under twenty one years of age. They continued their investigation.
He's like they asked how many drinks he's had, four beers.

(36:24):
Had you taken any drugs? No? So they're like, so
you're a lightweights getting super light and like one of
them writes it down in his little notebook of secrets
and riddles. So when asked if you'd taken any medication,
the student said he'd taken melatonin. Okay. So they're like,
so you're gonna have some crazy nightmares, got it scribble
And the cops were like, how did you get the

(36:44):
alcohol if you're under twenty one? He's like, I went
to a bar. Okay, how'd you get into the bar?
He's like, I use my ID. He gets his wallet
out and he hands them a Schaizard card. That's how
he got into the bars, a Pokemon card.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Obviously, Okay, I'll put it this way. A lot of
people are unaware of the fact that those bouncers often
only care if you go through the act of showing
them a card. I didn't realize that when I was
young until I tried it because one day I wanted
to get in. I wasn't twenty one. I was with
a bunch of people who were older and they were
so I said, hey, let me see your ID. He's like, oh,
I don't have I only have my idea. I'm like,
you were just saying you have an expired ID. He's like,

(37:20):
oh yeah, I'm like give it to me. So I
use an expired idea of my friend, who was a
very light skinned Jewish man, looked nothing like me. The
guy the bouncer looked at it, laughed his ass off
at means like, all right, going in because I made
him laugh, and I went through the whole respecting his job.
I'm just telling you is that I'm not surprised at

(37:40):
a I.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Can't find this guy's name and what he really what
if he actually looked exactly like Sharazar. That would be dope,
and they're like, well that makes sense. Yeah, Pokemon Sorry,
we've always been careful. Pokemon Go is happening. You're very
valuable around as a total side of Pokemon Go. But yeah,
there were so many crimes associated with Pokemon Go of

(38:02):
like trespassing, and then they're all like.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
People getting robbed.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Oh yeah, and then there's like super violent crimes that
we won't but yeah, that that could be its whole.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
And then the one person like walked off the cliff.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
It's crazy anyway, So he used that card to get
into the bars. An ambulance showed up, checked the kid out.
He declined transport to a hospital, which is smart because
ambulance rides are expensive, and then he was given medical
amnesty from any charges because they were just more concerned
about his well being. So could you imagine trying to

(38:35):
live that down? Like your two things, you're either like
I would tell everybody legend or you're like the biggest nerds.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
How am I not a legend? I gave the comps
a Shahrazard card and they're like, sorry, where do you
what is this? I'm like this is my ID, And
they're like, are you kidding me? I went through my.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Whole night with this. Yeah, I guess he is a legend.
Good good on him. Back to the robbing and stealing,
the burning and looting.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
You think he's a nerd?

Speaker 2 (39:01):
I do one thing. It's one thing to steal Pokemon
stuff from a card shop, sure, whether you bust through
a wall or just walk right out. But it's another
to go after the collectors. Do they make good targets individually?
Oh yeah, you better believe it. Oh yeah. And yet
another twenty twenty two crime. Wow, a grown man had
his card stolen from right out from under him.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
The rest of us had no idea so much Pokemon
was going on. Two.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Christopher Polydoro a sixty two year old insurance broker in
South Carolina. He lives in a seven bedroom, sixty eight
hundred square foot home right on the water.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
He's doing well selling insurance.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, he kept his collection of valuable Pokemon first edition
cards and a temperature controlled collectible room in his house.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
Room.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, not like a gun safe, now, like a room.
And like if you're at his house for a party
and he tries to like flex on you and brag
and show you this room and then I just like
impede my pants laughing and then escort it out.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
You said, this is a seven bedroom home, so yeah,
only six of them are bedrooms. One is a temperature
controlled Pokemon bedrooms.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
And then on top of that, there's an extra room.
It's it's a candy spelling gift wrap room. It's its
own thing. It's its own thing.

Speaker 5 (40:12):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
And it wasn't just all Pokemon cards. There were baseball, football,
basketball cards in there too. Had like a Jackson three
unopened boxes of Pokemon cards went missing. Polydor told investigators
that the only other individuals to ever enter the collectible's
room in the past nine months were workers with an
h VAC company. So he's not even showing this stuff

(40:33):
off anyone.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yeah, no friends, no family, doesn't even have like a
Pokemon buddy to.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Come over and look at his lightest two adult sons,
and he lives with his fiance. Okay, those are my suspects.
The best part is that the police report states that
the Pokemon cards were valued at half a billion dollars.
A yeah, and is there like a parenthesis ha ha
ha ha. That's obviously not true. And then Polydor told

(40:59):
the press that the cop me to typeout they're actually
worth half a million dollars five hundred thousand dollars worth
of Pokemon cards. That's insane, that's nuts. He said they
actually believe that too. He said he bought the cards
more than twenty years ago, and that the unopened boxes
each had twenty four packs of cards in them.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
One of the boxes, he said, contained a valuable Japanese
edition of the cards, and his valuation was based on
recent auction sales that brought in six figures for similar
first edition boxes issued in nineteen ninety nine. So that's
what you're saying, like, if you can get the pre
twenty twenty two massive run. The collection was not insured.
And again, I don't think it was the HVAC guys.

(41:38):
I think it's the two grown kids. I think they
did it. That's pure speculation on my part, don't sue me.
I think it was Nicholas Cage, and in concert with
Nicholas Cage.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
I'm just saying. The man's a collector. He's known to
break in to steal things. I think so was there
a woman he get impressed with this card?

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Because case clothes we solved it. Next we have thefts
from stores, thefts from collectors. What about thefts from the source,
from the fact.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
The magazine Hip hop magazine, the source.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
With the game on the cover. This is from the
factory itself. So apparently steps from Pokemon printing factories became
a trend during the pandemic. Prices are starting to go up.
If you're a factory worker and you see this paper
gold come sliding on by you on a production inside
jobs gangster's breakdown, of course you're sitting right there. Got

(42:30):
to catch them all.

Speaker 4 (42:31):
The gold is going right past you.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Thank you. And so the Pokemon company that's the like
the found out about this and quietly tried to put
a stop to it. And then last year the biggest
every factory theft came to light. Well, a photo went
around of thousands of Fusion strikes secret rare cards that

(42:57):
were stolen from a factory in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Fusion strikes, Fusion strikes, Sarin Elizabeth, This fusion strike you mentioned,
you know.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
What what is? It beats me. Even after reading this
explanation on the Pokemon website, the road ahead reveals limitless
potential with the Pokemon TCG Sword and Shield Fusion Strike expansion,
offering opportunities for Pokemon and trainers alike to reach new heights.
The most recent expansion introduces the third and final battlestyle,

(43:28):
Fusion Strike, joining Rapid Strike Style and Single Strike Style.
The Fusion Strike style prioritizes teamwork and adaptability to deliver
powerful attacks. Explore the power of teamwork in Pokemon. TCG
Sword and Shield Fusion Strike. So they didn't want to
call it tag team. It's still not clear, so let
me go on. Fusion Strikes style is all about adapting

(43:51):
and overcoming. Powerful Pokemon like Mew Hoopa and Jena Sect
embrace this striking new style, while Deoxy Please harness the
power of all three battle styles. Awesome new trainer cards
help complement the power and balance all of the Fusion
Strike style. Make strategic use of cards like the Cross

(44:11):
Switcher item card to keep opponents off balance and ensure
your active and benched Pokemon are exactly where you need them.
Use the Power Tablet item card to maximize Fusion Strike
attacks by doing additional damage, and the Spongy Gloves Pokemon
tool card maximizes damage against certain types of Pokemon. This

(44:32):
expansion features dozens of new Pokemon five and or is
it v and vmax, plus many alternate art versions to collect.
With powerful attacks and massive HP, these Pokemon can create
unique challenges for your opponents, from a rill a boom
vmax with an incredible three point thirty HP to a

(44:54):
single strike cinde Ice vmax with some fiery tendencies to
an intelli on v Max with a passion for stuff.
This expansions Pokemon v Max could not be underestimated. So
at this point they're not speaking a human language anymore.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Elizabeth, I have this headgear. I'd like you to put
this on. I'd like you to read all of that
again with the head gear on. Could you do that
for me?

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Vmax from vax incredible three HP?

Speaker 3 (45:23):
You like?

Speaker 2 (45:25):
I don't it? May, I'm more.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
Confused and sounds for you.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
I know that I feel like I'm having a stroke.
The stolen Fusion Strike cards, they're passed around the criminal underworld,
like so many spongy gloves, being offered. Finally to a
hobby store in Texas called Trading Card World, very unique name.
Someone came in and was like, you want to buy
a set of these Fusion strikes and then they were like,

(45:50):
what's that, and they had to explain the whole thing
you read from the Pokemon website like I just did.
The shop owners like, okay, that makes sense. So the
shop they checked them out and they saw that these
were thousands of the very rarest cards ever on Earth ever,
and they're like, this guy's not a regular collector, like.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
No one has.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
This had to have come from the source.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
Like if you walked in with Wagner cards.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
There's this there's this amazing Pokemon website called PokeBeach dot com.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
What like beach like as in were the waves beach be.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
This beach over beach poke Beach. So it's like, I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Him on I'm seeing the Jamaicans coming back around, coming
back to its source.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
They reported quote the seller explained his connection to his source,
and we immediately contacted TPCI, which would be the Pokemon
Company International through proper channels. The store stated tpc I
opened an investigation and a private investigator flew out to
collect the cards from the store. Pokemon expressed to this

(47:00):
or that quote it was the largest return of stolen
property to date. Pokemon concluded their investigation on January twenty
twenty two, which probably means they identified the original thief,
so they kept it hush. They put a lock, so
we don't know the full value too. No, none of that.
Poke Beach pointed out that people thought having all the

(47:23):
good cards taken out before they were sealed into packs
meant that fans couldn't get any good cards when they
opened the packs.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
That's what I would think.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
The odds wouldn't be in your favor. More on this
from Poke Beach, oh thank you quote. The cards seem
to have been stolen during the production phase. When they're
stored in boxes. The secret rares are printed separately from
other cards because of their texture. The secret rares are
printed on large sheets, cut into individual cards, and stored
in long white boxes. See this, I can understand. I

(47:53):
can follow this.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
Gold ticket stuff for.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Kamon language. But these guys make sense, Okay, I'll continue on.
At least five of those white boxes are packed into
a cardboard box that sent off to machines that sort
the cards into booster packs. The machine loads different boxes
of cards into each booster pack depending on their rarity.
We imagine the sorting machines alert the workers when they're

(48:17):
running low on certain rarities, meaning packs shouldn't have escaped
the factory without the proper rate of secret raars, Otherwise
it would be common for packs to be missing cards.
The factories also weigh every single booster pack. This not
only ensures that the packs have the proper amount of
cards in them, but it's also so that they know
what code card to insert into the packs. Specret wraars

(48:40):
are heavier than a normal card, so lighter code cards
are put in the packs to cancel out the weight difference.
This prevents packweighing an aftermarket, so it's unlikely packs with
improper weights would have left the factory floor, let alone
on a scale large enough to impact the entire print run.
There's multiple checks and balances in place. I'm so impressed

(49:01):
with it. It's fascinating. I have no idea, Like I'm thinking, like, yeah,
they just shuffle them up and throw cut them, yeah,
cut them, bag them.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
Much thought put in, like lifter cards and stuff or
waider cards what you want to call them.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
So it seems to me, what.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
Does it seem to you?

Speaker 2 (49:17):
A little? But there's nowhere safe for Pokemon cards except
for in the grubby hands of a kid.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
Yeah, where they immediately tarnished the value by making them
not being pristine value.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
I put love on them, Yes, exactly, Zaren. What is
your ridiculous takeaway.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
When it comes to things like, uh, collectibles, I hate boxes.
So like I've I was you know, I had friends
one time, Elizabeth, when I was a kid. When I
was a kid, I had friends and they used to
like some of them were like only children, and they
were like, Oh, I'm going to collect stuff and then
I'm going to sell back to you in a couple
of years. And I was like, I'm not going to buy.
They're like, yeah, you will, yeah, And I'm like what.

(49:52):
They're like, yeah, no, because look at this value. And
they'd show me the value and I'm like, I don't care.
I don't I want the toy to play with. They're like,
you're dumb, You're you'll buy this, and I'm like, you
future collectors. And my point is this is that some
people would rather have the pleasure of knowing they're going
to get a deal or money in the future, and
that delights them. I just want to play with my toys.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
I'm not a collector in that way, but I do
collect stuff and then I make it all grubby. So
I'm not really a collector. I'm more of like a
stuff haver.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
But I think it's a true collector because it's for
a personal thing I look at, like, here, let me
give you my ridiculous takeaways. Thank you for as I
didn't really care, but go on. I feel like we
primed the pump for millennials to get super heavy into
this because the nineties were Pokemon and beanie babies. Oh yeah,
and a couple of beanie babies were like kids weren't
allowed to play with beanie babies, like they had to

(50:39):
leave the tags on because they were going to gain value.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
They had a bunch of other stuff, like those pocket
walk things.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Like yeah, all sorts of that stuff. So but it
was like here's a toy, but it's not a toy.
I don't really play with it. This is going to
be worth something later on. And so then now like
they're all kind of looking back at their childhood stuff.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
I mean, like.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah, instead of like lovingly, like you know, looking at
that kind of thing. And so I just anytime I
see a beanie baby with a tag on it, I
want to pull the tag off. It's supposed to be.
It's the summer of dark Elizabeth. I not like I don't.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
I'm gonna watch my p's and q's.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
I have been pushed to my absolute limit and it
doesn't help. But it's like nine thousand degrees right now.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
That is driving always does that about you. You get a
little prickly when it gets hot with that mercury climb.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Also, it's just even so I just these days. Oh,
there's a lot to get there's a lot to get
heated about. The world's kind of crazy, yeah, and so
I'm getting I'm trying to be as gentle as I
can with everybody, even though on the inside I'm just
not raging constantly about everything. So yeah, be watch your
beanie babies around me. I'm wanna rip the tags off. David.

(51:45):
You know what make me feel better? A talk back?

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Can you hook this woman up?

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Oh God, I love get.

Speaker 5 (52:02):
Hello from Utah's Aaron Elizabeth, producer, Dave, all the interns.
I wanted to say, thank you guys so much for
giving us such an amazing show. I have undergone a
lot of surgeries the last few years. You guys have
been there with me every step of the way to
help make recovery a little bit easier and full of
laughs with all of your crazy antics and ridiculous crimes.

(52:25):
And I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
We love you, we got you back. First of all,
you're the kindest person because you gave a shout out
to the interns. Yes and big d. And also we
know what it's like to live in bodies that are
not cooperative. So fully, I'm there with you. I love it.
I'm glad we could help totally.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
I'm so glad we give you there. Yeah, I've done
on my back on the hospital bed. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
So yeah, that's I like that. That makes me happy.
Now now the summer of Dark Elizabeth is bright and
half a little feel really good. This is as a
reciprocation machine over here. It is. That's it for today.
You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
It's ad Age declared it the website of the century.
Did you see that?

Speaker 3 (53:12):
I saw that.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
I got the telegram and then Entertainment Weekly named it
the number three of the top five hundred websites. Wow
of the year twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
I'm still surprised by that I know so good.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
So anyway, ridiculous Crime dot com. We're at Ridiculous Crime
on Twitter and Instagram. You can email Ridiculous Crime at
gmail dot com. Please download the iheartapp and leave us
a talk back because I love them reach out. Ridiculous
Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced

(53:47):
and edited by Pokemon Wrangler to the stars Dave Coustin
starring Annals Rutger as Judith. Research is by Bulbosor Trainer
Marisa Brown and Sharmander Breeder Andrea Song Sharpened Hear. The
Themes as Long is by Thomas Blastoy's is My Spirit
Animal Lee and Travis Have you seen my light Up?
Pikachew Hot Dutton post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.

(54:10):
Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive
producers are Ben Wigglypuff Bowlin and Noel Jigglypuff Brown. Hey well,
do it's ridiculous Pokemon you dig.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.