Viral Pokemon TCG Fusion Strike “stolen” card post causes uproar – What actually happened?

Philip Trahan
Pokemon tcg fusion strike card thief header

Pokemon TCG fans were up in arms after a viral post showing hundreds of rare “stolen” Fusion Strike cards circulated among the community — but what actually happened to these rare cards?

The Pokemon Trading Card Game community was sent into a panic thanks to viral posts circulating around social media platforms like FaceBook, Twitter, and Reddit.

These posts showed hundreds upon hundreds of rare cards from the Sword & Shield Fusion Strike expansion, featuring a plethora of high-valued cards, which many speculated were stolen directly from a card printing facility.

Well, thanks to some insider information from various content creators in the Pokemon space, fans can get a clearer idea of what is actually going on in the viral photo which had some fans fearing Fusion Strike packs might have been compromised on release.

Viral Pokemon TCG Fusion Strike photo – what actually happened?

Users on social media sites like FaceBook, Twitter, and Reddit circulated an image of a bunch of rare cards on a table along with a claim: “If anyone wants to know why fusion strike had no hits… apparently an employee at the printing facility stole all the hits which are pictured below and tried to sell them to TCW. So here are everyone’s hits from FS. Apparently Pokémon came and picked them all up. Not sure what they did with all of the hits though. Crazy to see all of this.”

This vague information caused many fans to immediately jump to conclusions and assume that this thief caused a substantial negative impact on Fusion Strike pull rates. However, as time has passed more information on the photo in the thread above has come to light.

According to information gathered by Pokemon content creators like Rattle Pokemon and SBCoop, the photo in question was originally taken in September or October of 2021 by a card shop in Texas.

In Rattle’s explainer video, he spoke with the two employees seen in the photo, who shared details about the incident. The employees he spoke to claimed all of the cards they received were seized by an individual — likely a private investigator hired by The Pokemon Company International — in January of 2022.

The card shop claimed they did not purchase these cards directly from someone who may have stolen them, as the packaged cards were not shipped from North Carolina which houses the Millennium Print Group facility. Additionally, it seems that no actual money was exchanged for them.

However, the boxes the cards were packaged in clearly line up with those used on the production line at these card printing facilities. The seller also could have simply shipped the package around to mask their location.

Did the thief affect Fusion Strike card rarity?

Based on the claims from the Texas card shop employees and the boxes the cards were shipped in, it’s likely this thief did not impact the number of rare cards distributed in the Fusion Strike expansion.

The alleged thief’s identity is also still a mystery, so it’s hard to say definitely what exactly happened. Still, the card boxes, number of cards, and layout highly suggest the cards came directly from a print facility.

Finally, due to the fact that the cards were seized by someone on behalf of TPCi, they were likely disposed of as to not alter the market value of the cards in the future.

Related Topics

About The Author

Philip is a Staff Writer at Dexerto based in Louisiana, with expertise in Pokemon, Apex Legends, and general gaming industry news. His first job in the games industry was as a reviewer with NintendoEverything.com while attending college. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication focusing on Multimedia Journalism, he worked with GameRant.com for nearly two years before joining Dexerto. When he's not writing he's usually tearing through some 80+ hour JRPG. You can contact him at philip.trahan@dexerto.com.