Olivia Richman 
In a strange twist, Pokemon TCG cards have become a go-to method for money laundering in the Japanese criminal world.
Pokemon cards have been hitting historically high prices since 2020, with rare cards with perfect grading selling in auction for thousands. This has reportedly caught the attention of more than collectors; now criminals are getting into the Pokemon TCG.
Japanese publication Shunkan Gendai reports that criminals have started using Pokemon cards in money laundering schemes. An anonymous former head of a criminal gang explained just how this was done.
How are Pokemon cards being used in money laundering?
The high prices, portability, and easy liquidity of Pokemon cards have made the reselling market a strong option for money laundering.
As Pokemon cards have risen in price, they have reportedly become the target of some money laundering schemes in Japan. This racket doesn’t use particularly rare or valuable Pokemon cards, though.
According to Shunkan Gendai, criminals have taken to mass-reselling cards thanks to how easy they are to transport abroad. After taking them across borders, they can be sold for local currency.
“Many criminals who commit bank transfer fraud are converting the money they steal into Pokemon cards. Shady money can’t be deposited in a bank, and there’s a high risk of it being stolen if you hold it in cash. Pokemon cards are easy to hide, and if you take them overseas and cash them there, you can’t get tracked down,” Shunkan Gendai’s source said.
The method breaks down as follows:
- Purchase Pokemon TCG booster boxes with dirty money
- Determine which packs contain valuable cards
- Resell the unopened packs that don’t have valuable cards
- Take packs with valuable cards overseas
- Resell the best cards for local currency
According to the source, this process can yield a profit of roughly $20 per booster box. At scale, this becomes a self-sustaining enterprise.
Weighing Pokemon TCG packs central to money laundering criminal scheme
This may seem like a gamble since not all packs have high-value cards. Criminals have found a way around this, though. The former criminal explained that the valuable full-art and secret rare cards use a foil to create their special visuals. This foil is technically a metal, making these packs a teeny bit heavier than the regular cards.
Pack weighing is a longstanding practice when it comes to trading cards, even outside of criminal practices. It’s something Pokemon has struggled to combat.
Criminals are apparently getting very high-tech with their foil-finding scheme. They are said to be using metal detectors and highly sensitive scales to try and find packs with rare cards in them. This is a less-sophisticated version of a similar racket in the United States, where medical imaging technology can be used to detect the contents of packs and boxes.
The anonymous criminal told Shunkan Gendai that these crime syndicates often have a huge collection of unopened booster packs and boxes. These are obtained through Japanese online auction sites. By using this equipment, they can determine which packs to open, selling the rare cards within, and which packs should just be resold without opening them up.
It sounds silly at first, but this process is being used for very large-scale money laundering schemes, meaning it’s grown quite serious. There’s no word if officials have started investigating these claims yet and what can be done about the growing problem in Japan before it spreads.
