Pokémon cards being used as currency by criminals: Edmonton police – Edmonton | 24CA News
When you consider collectible playing cards like Pokémon or Magic the Gathering, most wouldn’t consider foreign money, however Edmonton police stated criminals are utilizing it that manner.
In a news launch despatched out to start with of July, EPS stated it did a search in two homes in April and located greater than $400,000 in unlawful medicine and likewise almost 60,000 Pokémon, sports activities and different collectible playing cards, price $34,000.
Global News requested Edmonton police for an interview however they declined our requests.
It’s not shocking to Jay Bardyla, who co-owns Rolling Tales Pop Culture in Edmonton. The retailer was sufferer to a theft in December, and Bardyla stated the thief stole solely collectible playing cards.
“When they came in, they sort of straight armed all the products into a big duffle bag, all on the floor,” Bardyla stated.
Bardyla stated he additionally had costly comics within the case, however the thief wasn’t and left it. He took principally Magic the Gathering and Pokémon playing cards.
“When you literally have boxes because you know you’re going to need them for sale, grabbing an entire box is going to net you a few bucks no matter what,” Bardyla stated.
He stated the criminals possible promote the playing cards rapidly on-line. If you maintain on to them for too lengthy, it might lose worth due to a fluctuating market.
“You have a lot of opportunity for cards to be sold on a secondary market, mostly online, which makes it very easy to move product and the cards are untraceable.”
Looking on the current seizure by Edmonton police, Bardyla stated that’s not truly an important haul.
“When you have that many cards, you’re almost at 50 cents a card there. So either the good stuff had already been moved, which is pretty likely, and then everything that was left over was fairly common,” Bardyla stated.
Criminologist Dan Jones stated utilizing collectible playing cards as a foreign money for organized crime is artful.
“You can store them, you’re not putting them in the bank … I would assume these individuals hope police aren’t catching on to this. So when they do search warrants, they’re not looking for Pokémon cards,” Jones stated.
Jones notes this rising pattern is already in different nations like Australia and England.
“They are incredibly valuable and the amount of money people are willing to pay for these things is a significant amount of money,” Jones stated.
“You can hide tens … of hundreds of thousands of dollars in these cards and use them for your money laundering system.”
Jones stresses so long as criminals are these collectible playing cards as money, comedian shops will likely be in danger.
“I think there is a risk to comic book and collectible stores when it becomes currency to use in the drug trade,” Jones stated.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
