{"id":35090,"date":"2023-08-26T22:45:33","date_gmt":"2023-08-27T02:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=35090"},"modified":"2023-08-26T22:45:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T02:45:37","slug":"5500-worth-of-items-stolen-in-florida-pokemon-heist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/08\/26\/5500-worth-of-items-stolen-in-florida-pokemon-heist\/","title":{"rendered":"$5,500 worth of items stolen in Florida Pok\u00e9mon heist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To Chad Rippey, what happened overnight Wednesday at his Lakeland, Florida, store was anything but a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had Crown Zenith premium collections, they took. We had Obsidian Flame booster boxes, they took all of,\u201d said Rippey. \u201cBuild and battles and booster bundles \u2014 they took all of those as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cPok\u00e9mon\u201d game bandit, or bandits, also stole newly released and hard-to-find Disney-themed \u201cLorcana\u201d card games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rippey said the games are only available right now at local game stores or online, where they are being re-sold for $300 each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI expect this to be the \u2018Tickle Me Elmo\u2019 \u2014 if anybody remembers that \u2014 of this holiday season,\u201d said Rippey. The owner said the thieves appeared to know what they were taking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rippey is co-owner of Decks & Dice Tournament Center off U.S. 92 in Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The store, which opened on Black Friday in 2020, sells trading card games and collectibles and hosts tournaments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday morning, Rippey got a call from his landlord about a theft at the store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somebody had broken in by smashing the glass front door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know how bad it would be. Obviously, they could have cleaned us out of everything, which would have been devastating. I mean, we were frustrated, angry, mad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rippey estimates he lost $5,500 worth of retail. This is not a one-off when it comes to \u201cPok\u00e9mon\u201d card-related thefts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Indianapolis, two men are under investigation<\/a> for allegedly stealing $300,000 worth of cards at Gen Con earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re desperate for money or possibly a career criminal, but obviously, they don\u2019t have good morals. They\u2019re not a good person,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Rippey\u2019s case, Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office detectives are gathering video evidence and contacting local stores to be on the lookout for the stolen items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe\u2019re asking for tips. So if anybody was passing by here and saw a suspicious person on Wednesday night, this is a very active roadway here,\u201d said Brian Bruchey, Public Information Officer with the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People with information can also contact Heartland Crimestoppers at 1-800-226 TIPS (8477).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Rippey is trying to move forward, despite the loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said upcoming tournaments will be impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some \u201cPok\u00e9mon\u201d box sets are sold out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have booster boxes for those tournaments now, so that will affect it. I was planning on hosting a half-case tournament. Probably not gonna be able to do that now,\u201d said Rippey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said shop owners from Polk County and surrounding areas have reached out to help and watch out for the stolen products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To Chad Rippey, what happened overnight Wednesday at his Lakeland, Florida, store was anything but a game. \u201cWe had Crown Zenith premium collections, they took. We had Obsidian Flame booster… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[5804,5805],"class_list":["post-35090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-5804","tag-500-worth-of-items-stolen-in-florida-pokemon-heist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}