ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. (WXYZ) — Last weekend, a couple of card-stealing crooks hit multiple businesses in the St. Clair Shores area and now, police are looking for them.
The thefts happened Saturday at Detroit Sports Cards & Collectibles and Fat Katz Sportscards & Collectibles, which are just minutes away from each other.
The card collection business is quite lucrative. Some of the cards are worth tens of thousands of dollars. Local business owners say even one of them being stolen hurts their bottom line.
“It’s frustrating. Really frustrating,” said Lowell Ahee, the owner of Detroit Sports Cards. “They took some vintage sports cards. It’s at least three to four hundred dollars so far that we know of.”
Surveillance video shows two men looking curious and interested in a purchase. One of them looked directly into the security camera before getting away with items at Detroit Sports Cards.
That same day, police say the two men stole three boxes of valuable Japanese Pokémon cards from Fat Katz.
“I would say probably around 250 to maybe 300, 400 bucks,” Fat Katz owner Gabriela Jourdan said.
The men got away with in-demand products that holiday shoppers are looking for.
“So we are very kid-oriented and to know that a kid is not going to get what they wanted for Christmas because someone came and stole it, to me, is kind of heartbreaking,” Jourdan said.
We did a little digging and thought if two businesses were hit, maybe there were more in the surrounding areas.
Last Friday at Collector's Arena in Chesterfield during one of their busy vendor shows, it’s believed the same two men got away with $150 worth of Pokémon cards. One of the men was wearing the same hat and sunglasses as in the St. Clair Shores incidents.
“Because of it, we’ve remodeled the store and now nobody can put their hands on anything unless they ask somebody that works here. It’s unfortunate that that’s how you got to run your business, but it happens,” Collector’s Arena owner Craig Richardson said.
The hard-working business owners say the cards have most likely already been sold off. They just hope the crooks are caught soon, so this doesn’t happen to any other business.
“Low as you can get. And it’s frustrating because the people that own these stores in the area, we’re all friends,” Richardson said.
Anyone with information about the thefts is asked to call St. Clair Shores police at 586-445-5300.
