“Which are da expensive ones?”

Pretty much for as long as jewelry stores have been around, they’ve had pretty tight security. Precious stones have an extremely high value-to-weight ratio, and there’s a large second-hand market for them, something that’s conducive to easily flipping stolen goods.

All of those traits also apply to collectible trading cards, though, and in a sad but continuing trend, companies that sell those coveted pieces of paper are increasingly becoming targets for thieves, with an invasion burglary that took place in Osaka on Monday being the latest such incident.

At roughly 3:30 in the morning two workers at a company that sells trading cards had just wrapped up a live-stream that they’d been doing from their office near Nagahoribashi Station in Osaka’s Chuo Ward. Two robbers broke into the office and threatened the workers with bladed instruments, then tied them to chairs. However, while the robbers knew that there were valuable cards in the office, they apparently didn’t know which ones were valuable, asking the workers “Which ones are da expensive ones, huh?” in Kansai-accented Japanese.

Based on the workers’ answers, the robbers made off with over 100 cards, with a total market value of approximately 10 million yen (about US$68,000), and also stole the two men’s smartphones and around 250,000 yen in cash that was in the office. They left the victims tied up and with duct tape covering their mouths, but the workers were eventually able to break free some two hours later and call the police to report the crime. The victims describe them as wearing black clothing, sunglasses, and masks, and they remain at large as of this writing.

With the company being located in an office building, and not a conventional retail space, it seems to be primarily focused on online sales. That in turn may mean that they don’t have walk-in customers and, with no worries about shoplifting, didn’t feel the need for extensive security precautions. As collectible cards are continuing to attract criminals, though, it’s becoming clearer that a thorough security plan is an important part of managing a card shop or other resale business.

Source: NHK News Web, Tokyo Shimbun
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