Crime

A former Director of Engineering at The Pokémon Company International’s (TPCi) Bellevue location in Washington State has been charged with numerous crimes regarding voyeurism and possession of child sex abuse material. Ben Tsai, 45, worked for TPCi from 2017 to 2026 and is accused of hiding cameras in the office’s bathrooms, and at other nearby businesses. One unnamed victim is now bringing a class action lawsuit against TPCi for their alleged negligence regarding Tsai’s alleged crimes.

Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo, the largest Pokémon Center store in Japan, and its adjoining Pokémon Sweets café will be reopening in August after its closure in March of this year. The stores have been closed following the tragic murder of a Pokémon Center employee at the hands of her stalker. The Pokémon Company states the store will reopen with stricter safety measures, including entry restrictions.

At about 4:30 PM on June 28th, a father-and-son team of vendors at the Woodbridge Card Show in Woodbridge, New Jersey were packing up their merchandise when approached by two men. The assailants physically assaulted the younger man and threatened both at gunpoint, eventually making off with $150,000 USD worth of Pokémon cards and $12,000 USD cash. The suspects fled, and Woodbridge police are currently investigating the incident.

Police in Vancouver, Canada, have arrested three teenage boys in connection with a violent Pokémon card robbery that occurred the night of Tuesday, April 22nd. Police say the victim met up with the teens shortly after 8 PM, after agreeing to the sale via Facebook Marketplace. The boys then allegedly used bear-spray on the seller and robbed him of the cards. The suspects fled the scene, and only one of the cards has been recovered.

On April 2nd, the Singen customs office issued a statement regarding an incident at the Germany-Switzerland border that took place last week. A 33-year-old Swiss man attempted to smuggle 900 boxes of Pokémon Trading Card Game cards, worth €6,900 (approximately $USD 7,950), into Germany through the Bühl border checkpoint.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) has released a slew of new information concerning yesterday’s fatal stabbing of an employee at Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo, inside the Sunshine City complex in Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo. The victim and perpetrator, who died by suicide, have both been identified, as well as their previous relationship and the perpetrator’s previous arrests.

An employee of Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo, inside the Sunshine City complex in Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo, has died after a man previously arrested for stalking her entered the store with a knife. The perpetrator went behind the counter where the employee was working, stabbed her, then stabbed himself in the neck. Both later died at a hospital from their injuries.

After being the victim of a robbery for $100,000 USD worth of Pokémon cards, among other merchandise, owners of a Pokémon Trading Card Game shop in New York City have been asked to change their name and branding, which included Nintendo trademarks. The robbery, which occurred on January 14th of this year, apparently brought so much publicity to the shop that Nintendo took notice.

At about 6:40 PM on January 14th, several masked men entered The Poké Court, a Pokémon Trading Card Game shop in the Borough of Manhattan, in New York City. Reports differ on if there were three or four suspects, but the group was armed, and held employees and customers at gunpoint while they smashed glass cases and grabbed cards. Employees of the shop told local news that an estimated $100,000 USD worth of PSA-graded cards and other products were stolen. No injuries have been reported.

In the early morning hours of Thursday, December 11th, at least three people were seen on security cameras breaking through the front door of the Medoncino Farms restaurant in Woodland Hills, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. From there, the thieves broke through a wall in the restaurant to the neighboring Cards & Coffee TCG shop, where they packed up an estimated $30,000 worth of Pokémon cards and sports cards before making their escape.

On April 18th, 2025, Nintendo of America filed a DMCA subpoena against Discord Inc. in attempt to discover the identity of the user who were able to gain unauthorized access to Gamefreak's servers. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California has ordered Discord to provide any information they can about the user behind the data breach, who went by GameFreakOUT. The hack came to be known as the "Freakleak".

Shortly after closing on Sunday, April 6th, TCG Planet in Perry, Iowa was broken into and robbed of approximately $25,000 to $40,000 USD worth of Pokémon Trading Card Game products by a yet-unknown suspect. The burglar gained access to the store, which was only newly opened in January of this year, by breaking through two backdoors. He then ripped the security cameras down from the walls and made off with nearly all the Pokémon cards on the property.

In the early morning hours of January 2nd, Metro Entertainment, a comics and collectibles store in Santa Barbara, California, was robbed of approximately $10,000 USD worth of Pokémon TCG singles. The still-at-large thieves gained access by destroying the deadbolt on the front door, sparing the shop any large-scale property damage.

A yet unnamed 32-year-old man has been arrested in Saitama Prefecture in Japan on suspicion of tampering with the save data and selling physical copies of Pokémon Sun. The man, who identified himself as self-employed, is suspected of listing hacked Pokémon Sun copies for sale online and subsequently selling one to a man in Ishikawa Prefecture in May of 2024.

A news release issued by Nintendo Co., Ltd. and The Pokémon Company on Thursday September 19th (JST) has named Pocketpair, Inc. as the defendant in a patent infringement lawsuit filed in the Tokyo District Court. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are seeking an injunction against the company for "infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights."

Joe Adam is the owner of TCG Exchange, a Pokémon card shop that operates out of a few counters and shelves inside a boba café in San Antonio. At about 2:30 AM on August 24th, Adam was notified that his security system detected motion in the store; he watched as two men in hoodies loaded singles from the display cases, binders full of cards, and Elite Trainer Boxes into trash bags and backpacks. Local newspapers note that each card in the display was worth more than $35, and each binder was worth more than $1,200. Adam estimated the total theft amount was between $12,000 and $15,000.

On August 19th, the Hong Kong Police Force raided a small, upstairs shop specializing in Pokémon TCG products, seizing $10 million HKD (approx. $1.3 million USD) worth of methamphetamine from the store. The raid came after an investigation and interception of a 28 year old man outside the shop, on whom the police found 5 kg of the drug. Upon taking him back inside the shop, police found an additional 16 kg of crystal meth in the staff area.

On July 4th, Aizil A Rahim, 28, was sentenced to 18 months in jail after repeatedly cheating customers on the Singaporean e-commerce platform Carousell and reporting false information to law enforcement officers in an effort not to be caught. Aizil pled guilty to nine counts of criminal breach of trust and one count of giving false information to a public servant, among sixteen more charges brought against him. The convicted will begin serving his sentence on July 11th.

Yoshihiro Yamakawa, a 36 year old interior designer from the Kyoto Prefecture in Japan, was arrested on April 9th on suspicion of modifying data in Pokémon Violet in order to sell hacked Pokémon online. Between December 2022 and March 2023, the suspect allegedly advertised his illegitimate Pokémon via a website meant for buying and selling items and accounts for video games, and even took custom orders for Shinies and other difficult-to-obtain Pokémon. Modifying save data and providing services that circumvent technological limitations of certain hardware are acts that are illegal in Japan under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act.

The host of a Pokémon-themed Easter scavenger hunt, Unravel and Unwind CIC, have posted an appeal on their Facebook page for the return of six crocheted Pokémon decorations. The nonprofit yarn shop had originally placed 46 Pokémon decorations made by volunteer artisans around the Gillingham community for children and families to find. However, sometime over the holiday weekend, a post box topper featuring Wobbuffet, Lefeaon, Voltorb, Snom, Mew, and Oddish was “selfishly” removed from its place near St. Mark’s Church in Gillingham.