“Team Rocket has stuck House of Cards Abbotsford,” wrote the Abbotsford card shop on social media following a massive break-in on the morning of Friday, March 6.
According to House of Cards, they are the most recent victim of a “string of store robberies” in the Lower Mainland.
Hobby Store Robberies
House of Cards isn’t the first Metro Vancouver card shop to be broken into. Back in January, the store Everything J&J was also hit by a robbery. Security camera footage shows four masked individuals smashing glass displays and shoving things into bags. The New Westminster Police Department’s Sergeant Andrew Leaver said that “stealing from a small, locally owned business harms real people in our community.”
Due to surging market value, Pokémon cards have become a recent new interest for thieves. Moreover, the rarest cards have the potential to sell in the millions. This makes card packs and individual cards extremely valuable assets, as they can be resold quickly.
House of Cards is an Abbotsford-based hobby shop that sells everything from Magic: the Gathering cards to Pokémon cards. In the early morning of Friday, March 6, the store’s president Brandon Chreptyk was told that his store had been broken into. Numerous cards were missing.
Video footage reveals masked suspects smashing the windows and stealing Pokémon cads from display cases. Additionally, the estimated value of the stolen cards is approximately $30,000.
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The store’s social media post notes that “these appear to be the same guys—and the same car—that broke into our friends at Zephyr Epic’s store in Surrey on Thursday.” Reportedly, the car that the thieves arrived in had stolen plates, but “is likely one of the thieves’ personal vehicles.”
The post goes on to warn other store owners about the thieves. Notably, the car the thieves used was a silver Ford Edge, with stolen plates.
“This is really tough for any small business.”
