A 28-year-old man has been sentenced after he reportedly stole over £60,000 worth of Pokémon cards from his place of work, selling the cards online for a profit.
Kyriacos Christou from Edmonton, London, worked at Magic Madhouse Limited. According to the Daily Mirror, the company sells tabletop gaming merchandise including Pokémon cards. In late 2021, company owner Michael Duke noticed stock had gone missing and decided to install security cameras.
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The footage reportedly showed Christou pocketing the Pokémon card stock and Duke later called authorities. During court proceedings, Christou admitted to stealing the cards after police found over 500,000 cards stashed at his mother’s house. Christou alleged that whilst some were the stolen stock, others belonged to his brother. Christou reportedly sold the cards via an eBay account.
Prosecutor Nick Cribb said, “The defendant, who knew his Evolutions pre-release Charizard Holo from his Granbull V Full Art Ultra Rare, stole over £60,000 of stock from his employer and listed them for sale on his own eBay account."
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The eBay account was found by business owner Michael Duke who noticed that the cards sold matched those that were missing from his stock. Sales included a pack of Japanese Worlds promo cards for £600 and a first edition Lugia card for £1,000, according to the Mirror.
Prosecutor Cribb told the court that the estimated total value of the missing stock was £61,797. Around £9,519 of this remains unaccounted for. Christou was sentenced to 16 months suspended for two years, and 175 hours of unpaid work. If Christou pays £6,000 towards the shortfall, he was told that jail time could be avoided.