PSA responds to $1 million Pokémon and trading card theft in FedEx truck heist

At a glance

What happened

Santa Ana police were called to Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) on Tuesday 13 October about the theft of an estimated $963,000 of cards (around £720,000) from a FedEx truck, police spokesperson Natalie Garcia told NBC News. Two pallets of cards were taken and a third was “disrupted”.

PSA is in Santa Ana, about 33 miles south-east of Los Angeles. The cards had been sent in for grading and were on their way back to collectors when the truck was hit.

It remains an open case: police say no arrests have been made and nothing has been recovered yet, and the value of what was taken could rise.

What PSA has said

PSA says it is working with investigators and has deactivated the certificates of the stolen items. It has also told its marketplace partners to look out for rare and serialised cards from the shipment.

In practice that means a stolen slab can be caught when it’s sold on: its cert number comes back deactivated on PSA’s cert checker. If a graded card you’re offered fails that check, walk away and report it.

What was taken

The haul is mostly sports cards, with Pokémon and other trading cards among them. Collector Nick Andrews, known online as the Boston Card Hunter, has been compiling a list of cards reported stolen: it had reached 383 cards by Monday evening, including a 1995 Upper Deck 23K Gold Michael Jordan card and a 2024 One Piece Simplified Chinese 1st Anniversary Set Nami.

He says there are several victims, one of whom lost around $500,000 of cards, and that this could end up as one of the biggest heists in trading card history.

Another collector, known as Sky-B, told NBC News that 104 cards he had built up over two years were in the shipment, on their way back to him in Michigan. He had paid about $8,000 in grading fees, and the cards were insured for up to $156,000, well below what he says they were worth. “There are many irreplaceable cards in here that I will never see again,” he said.

What FedEx has said

FedEx said the security of customers’ shipments is a top priority and that it is working with local law enforcement on the investigation.

What it means for UK collectors

Stolen graded cards tend to resurface on marketplaces, sometimes months later and sometimes abroad. Before you buy a PSA slab, check its cert number on PSA’s website: the stolen cards’ certificates have been deactivated, so a deactivated cert is a red flag.

If a high-end slab is being offered well under the going rate with a vague story behind it, be careful. We’ll update this page if cards are recovered or arrests are made.

Is it official?

It’s a news report: Galar Alerts wrote it up from what’s been published. Where Pokémon or a shop has confirmed something, the story says so.

Updates

• Tuesday, 20 October 2026:

Reported by Galar Alerts.