A Gardena woman discovered a gaping hole punched through the back wall of her storage locker this week, the entry point burglars used to haul away roughly $300,000 worth of Pokémon cards, vintage clothing, toys and costume jewelry. No arrests have been made, and the thieves remain at large.
The burglary was reported Monday at a storage facility in the 1400 block of West 190th Street, according to NBC Los Angeles. The woman told authorities she found a hole in the wall at the back of her locker, the apparent route the burglars used to slip inside undetected and clear out her belongings.
LAPD officers responded to the scene and took a burglary report, per the outlet's account, but as of the report no suspects had been identified or taken into custody.
Part of a Wider Southern California Pattern
The Gardena theft lands amid a wave of similar break-ins targeting trading card collectors and shop owners across the region. The Los Angeles Times reported that collectors and shop owners across Southern California have been targeted in brazen, sophisticated and sometimes violent thefts over the past six months, with losses in some cases reaching six figures. In one incident described by the paper, a collector was robbed at gunpoint outside RWT Collective in Sawtelle, with robbers making off with more than $300,000 worth of cards.
A separate Times report found that shops in Gardena, Simi Valley and Huntington Beach have all been hit by burglars who bypass cash registers entirely and go straight for the cards, with regional losses topping $500,000 in just two months. Burglars also broke into Simi Sportscards in Simi Valley, making off with at least $10,000 worth of goods, much of it Pokémon cards, according to the same reporting.
Burrowing through walls has become something of a signature move for these crews. In Anaheim, three suspects broke into Do-We Collectibles by first entering the business next door, then tearing through drywall to reach the shop and fleeing with an estimated $20,000 worth of cards, the Times reported. A similar tactic was caught on camera elsewhere in California, where, according to Local 12, a team of burglars went through the wall of an insurance office to reach a valuable collectible card store, making off with more than $100,000 in Pokémon and One Piece trading cards. Store owner Duy Pham now keeps his most expensive cards hidden in a vault for protection.
A Market Too Big to Ignore
The surge in break-ins tracks with the sheer size the hobby has grown into. Over roughly 30 years, Pokémon cards have become a billion-dollar industry, with rare cards selling for hundreds of thousands and, in some cases, millions of dollars, according to a report from WBUR. That outlet noted the exponential rise of the market has led to more and more theft, as criminals increasingly view rare cards the way they once viewed watches or jewelry.
Storage facilities themselves have become targets well beyond just card collections. In Glendale, police said suspects burglarized 13 storage units and stole approximately $150,000 worth of property, according to FOX 11 Los Angeles. Five suspects entered a Public Storage facility on the 5500 block of San Fernando Road on August 22, and a second break-in the following day involved collectible shoes and comic books estimated to be worth $75,000.
Not every hit has happened in California. Masked suspects stole $15,000 worth of Pokémon cards from The Card Lab in Brentwood in under 40 seconds in June, according to ABC News, which also reported that thieves in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, smashed through a glass door to steal between $40,000 and $50,000 worth of cards and merchandise from Big Pack Hobby Shop.
It remains unclear whether the Gardena storage locker burglary is connected to any of these other reported thefts across the region, and investigators have not released a case number or suspect description. For now, the woman whose locker was breached is left counting her losses while LAPD's burglary report sits open and unsolved.
