Florida Man Arrested for Stealing $12,000 Worth of Pokémon Cards with

A Florida man has been arrested after $12,000 of Pokémon cards were stolen from a local store, during a break-in that involved a battery-powered chainsaw.

Clayton Warren, 33, has been charged with burglary and theft of goods totaling more than $10,000 following a somewhat bungled heist at Collection Realm, a trading card store in West Palm Beach. Surveillance footage identified a man resembling Warren at the store two days before the break-in. Another individual broke into the store on May 21, attempting to break a window with a rock before using a small chainsaw.

Warren was easily traced through surveillance cameras that captured his license plate. Blood left at the scene from the chainsaw further linked him to the crime. This incident adds to a series of thefts targeting Pokémon cards, with a recent case in Manhatten involving a $100,000 robbery that led Nintendo to request a shop name change.

In another incident in Burbank, $100,000 worth of cards were stolen overnight, with California authorities suspecting a connection to similar thefts in the region. The theft of Pokémon cards has been a recurring issue nationwide, with a recent arrest in Pasadena of a fan who hid in a closed Best Buy awaiting a card drop.