Pokémon card thief dumber than Team Rocket, tries to resell cards back to store he stole them from

September 13, 2022

After stealing around $20,000 worth of

On Aug. 9 around midnight, the suspect, later identified as 37-year-old Myles Vaughn Pajnogac, smashed the glass door of the Cosmic Games store located in Whatcom County, Washington and stole many items, including Pokémon TCG packs and Magic: The Gathering cards, reported The Bellingham Herald.

Almost a month later, Pajnogac returned to the store on Sep. 3 and allegedly tried to sell back the cards he had stolen. However, a staff member at Cosmic Games recognized Pajnogac as the thief who had robbed the store and confronted him.

Pajnogac allegedly became belligerent and told the staff members, “I’ll rob you again [expletive],” before leaving. In the heat of the moment, the suspect left the pile of cards in the store.

Due to damages done to the cards, the stolen goods were severely devalued.

“It looked like around $6,000 to $8,000 worth at first but after actually getting a chance to go through them it was closer to $1,000 worth. It all had sustained damage from the theft and how they had been stored and handled in the weeks since and it is now possibly a few hundred dollars of the original value due to that,” a staff member told Kotaku.

Police were contacted around 2:39 p.m. and provided with a photo of Pajnogac. Around 9:57 p.m. on Sep. 3, an officer located the man and arrested him. In addition to finding more Pokémon cards, police reportedly discovered fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Pajnogac was charged with second-degree burglary, first-degree theft, second-degree possession of stolen property, first-degree trafficking and malicious mischief. However, on Sep. 4 he was released from jail on personal recognizance.

Featured Image via Power9Quest

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