Pokémon Card Owner in Japan Swindled Out of Over $300,000 After Falling for One of the Oldest Fake Money Tricks in the Book

Police in Japan have arrested three men in a Pokémon card-buying scam. The alleged criminals arranged to buy three rare Pokémon cards for 51 million yen (approx. $320,000) from an individual. However, the paper bag they handed over to the victim was just filled with bundles of paper designed to look like real stacks of cash. This clichéd strategy has drawn some amusement on Japanese social media for being like something out of an anime. Toru Morino (38), Jun Takemura (54), and Eiji Koda (52) are suspected of working together to swindle a man in his 30s out of three valuable and rare Pokémon cards. Back in June 2024, they apparently arranged to meet up with the victim at a hotel in Tokyo to exchange 51 million yen in cash for the Pokémon cards. The accused trio apparently gained the victim’s trust by showing him what seemed to be wads of money in a paper bag. However, after leaving the hotel, the victim discovered that only the top 10,000 yen (approx. $60) note of each bundle was genuine, and the rest were merely pieces of banknote-sized paper. So instead of receiving the promised 51 million yen, the victim only got 1 million yen (approx. $6,295) for his trio of rare Pokémon cards.