Allen police investigators continue to investigate a theft of valuable baseball cards. The victim posted a spreadsheet online detailing what was stolen: Cards worth nearly $2 million.
Police told NBC 5 that they were taking this theft very seriously because they had a good working relationship with the Dallas Card Show, one of the largest card dealer events in the country.
On Sunday, the last day of the show, while vendors were taking down their booths, a man distracted the vendor for Legacy Cardz while another man swiped a case behind him.
Ashish Jai is the vintage card dealer for Legacy Cardz. He posted his recording of the surveillance video on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, hoping someone would identify the thieves. He also wrote online that he's offering a $70,000 reward.
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In a brief phone conversation with NBC 5, Jai said his day was very hectic, and he was trying to find the stolen property.
A quick look online reveals how valuable individual cards can be: many are worth tens of thousands of dollars, some north of $100,000. According to news reports from Ohio, a similar situation happened earlier this Spring. Police arrested a 27-year-old man after he was accused of swiping more than $2.1 million worth of cards.
Allen Police, after looking at the surveillance video, believe it was an organized and planned crime.
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“It appears to be an organized group of individuals where they come in; one serves the role of distracting the victim, and then the other moves in to deprive them of their property," said Office Sammy Rippamonti with Allen police.
Rippamonti said Monday that they were collecting evidence, including fingerprints, videos, and photographs. They plan to use facial recognition technology to identify the people in the video.
“What we have learned is in the card collecting world, it’s a very tight-knit community, so if you see these cards showing up at the other shows or online sites, please reach out and let us know," said Rippamonti.
