Two brothers jailed for stealing over £71,000 in Pokémon TCG cards

Keith and Shane Johnson, brothers aged 33 and 37, have pleaded guilty to a string of burglaries targeting collectibles stores across England, making off with more than £71,000 worth of Pokémon TCG cards and other merchandise. Cheshire Police announced the outcome, even titling their report with a cheeky "gotta catch 'em all" reference.

The main hit was Celestial Collectables on Lovely Lane in Warrington, broken into on the evening of 8th April 2026. The shop specialises in rare, high-value Pokémon cards and memorabilia. Investigators found a crowbar at the scene, and the stolen cards alone were valued at £62,000, with over £3,000 in damage to the store itself. Police tracked the brothers using CCTV footage of a van with cloned plates, tracing its journey from Birmingham to Warrington on the day of the burglary. Connecting additional break-ins — causing over £9,000 in further damage — to the same pair, officers followed a Nissan X-Trail linked to a separate job. West Midlands Police eventually flagged another burglary in Warwickshire and spotted the Nissan parked outside Keith's address. A search turned up the van keys from the Warrington job, stolen property, the Nissan keys, and clothing worn during the first break-in.

Keith Johnson received a 29-month prison sentence. Shane, treated as an accomplice, admitted to the same offences and is due to be sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court on 31st July. The case is a stark illustration of how valuable Pokémon TCG products have become — rare sealed sets can fetch enormous sums, and the secondary market has been plagued by scalping for years. Nintendo's president has previously acknowledged the problem, and The Pokémon Company has pledged measures to address widespread card scalping, while simultaneously ramping up print runs into the billions to try to keep supply ahead of demand.

With a major 30th anniversary set on the horizon, collector interest — and the criminal attention that comes with it — shows no sign of cooling off. The Warrington case is an extreme end of a broader pattern, but it underlines just how seriously some people are treating Pokémon cards as high-value targets worth serious risk.