Japanese crime syndicate accused of using Pokemon cards to launder money

A Japanese crime syndicate has been implicated in buying and selling Pokemon cards to launder money, the former leader revealing how they do it.

A crime syndicate has been reportedly using Pokemon cards as a way to transport stolen money overseas. The former head of the syndicate detailed to Shunkan Gendai Online, which has been translated by Automaton, how these cards are used to launder money abroad.

Pokemon cards are small in size but can be incredibly valuable with the rarest cards selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. This means they are allowed to be bought, transported, and sold overseas, the crime leader revealed.

The former syndicate leader further explained how these organizations can then resell the cards and convert their profits into local currency. 

Crime syndicate uses metal detectors to snuff out rare Pokemon cards

The Pokemon Company

Rare Pokemon cards sell for thousands of dollars but are hard to find.

While purchasing and selling Pokemon cards is always risk and reward given you never really know what you’re going to get from each pack, the syndicate allegedly uses multiple methods to try and track down expensive cards.

Pokemon collectors across the world are always working on ways to figure out what cards are included in a pack before opening them, including creating devices that can scan the contents of the pack. 

Each Pokemon pack only includes 10 cards and the chances of pulling valuable variants or rare EX cards is always low. So how do these criminals pull sought-after and expensive cards consistently?

Undercover reporting by Shunkan Gendai revealed that the syndicate uses metal detectors or sensitive weights to assess if packs have shiny foiling inside and consequently, rare and expensive cards.

From there, they open up the packs they believe to contain rare cards and sell them individually at high prices. Any unopened packs are then resold and sealed.

This isn’t the first time, nor will it likely be the last, that an organization or group of people have created an illegal Pokemon-selling scheme. What’s more, there have been multiple instances in the past year of Pokemon cards getting stolen from warehouses, the Van Gogh Museum, and more.