A Tacoma card shop is hiring overnight security guards after thieves rammed a pickup truck through its back door and escaped with around $50,000 worth of Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering cards. The burglary hit Northwest Sportscards on 6th Avenue shortly after 5 a.m. on Monday, 2 November, KOMO News reported. Owner Don Knutsen, who has run the shop for nearly 40 years, said the burglars were “in and out in just a couple of minutes”. Tacoma police are investigating, and no arrests had been reported by Saturday.
It was not the first time the shop had been targeted this year, either. Knutsen and police believe the same people were behind an attempted break-in in July and a burglary in August, when a window was smashed and thousands of dollars in sports cards were taken. “Same truck, same method for ramming in the door,” Knutsen told MyNorthwest. He added that the thieves “had cased the place, no doubt about it”.
How the thieves broke into Northwest Sportscards
Security footage from the shop shows a black pickup driving into the warehouse entrance, before masked suspects load containers with hundreds of boxes of cards. According to MyNorthwest, the pair drove off and then returned about a minute later to take even more stock. Police said the suspects “used a pickup truck to ram through the business’s rear metal doors”. Knutsen said the thieves filled the bed of the truck with sealed product from the shelves and the storeroom.
Investigators have released a detailed description of the vehicle they want to find. It is a 2006 or 2007 Dodge Ram 2500 or 3500 with a Mega Cab or extended cab, a broken taillight on the driver’s side and damage to the rear bumper. The truck was carrying a Washington plate, C12766M, which had been reported stolen. Crime Stoppers of Tacoma-Pierce County is offering up to $1,000 for information that leads to an arrest and charges, while Knutsen has put up a separate $5,000 reward of his own.
Why sealed Pokémon cards have become a target
The type of stock taken makes the case harder to solve. Knutsen said many of the stolen Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering products were sealed, with no serial numbers or other identifying marks. Graded sports cards are far easier to trace, because each slab carries its own certification number. He is now watching resale listings closely and contacting other dealers in case the stolen boxes are offered to them.
Demand for Pokémon products has rarely been higher, which also raises their value to thieves. The franchise is in its 30th anniversary year, and fans in France camped outside a Fnac store a day early this week for the 30th Celebration Ultra-Premium Collection. The anniversary has also sparked a surge of interest in markets such as the Netherlands, built around the 30th Celebration set that launched worldwide on 16 September. At the very top of the market, Logan Paul’s Pikachu Illustrator card sold for a record $16.4 million in February. Knutsen himself said rising card prices had brought new security problems for his business.
Tacoma is far from the only card shop to be hit in 2026. In June, thieves took around $15,000 worth of Pokémon cards from Card Lab in Brentwood, California, in just 39 seconds, ABC7 reported. A month earlier, a card shop in Tempe, Arizona, lost thousands of dollars in Pokémon cards in a smash-and-grab caught on camera, according to AZFamily.
What Northwest Sportscards is changing after the burglary
The shop is now spending heavily to stop a fourth break-in. Knutsen is adding security guards every night of the week and installing bollards around the building to block vehicles, according to KOMO. The store already had high-definition cameras, which captured the burglary but did not deter it. Knutsen summed up the damage bluntly, telling MyNorthwest that the thieves “got us pretty good”.
The losses go well beyond the retail price of the stolen boxes. Knutsen explained that the shop has to sell around ten times as much product to recover the cost of each theft, and that the break-ins have also put a strain on his staff and family. Anyone with information can contact Crime Stoppers of Tacoma-Pierce County anonymously on 1-800-222-8477.
