Booming Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Prices Raise Alarms Over Criminal Money Laundering Schemes

Easy to trade, hard to trace, and able to pass airport customs with ease

The trading card market is more overheated than ever before. Cards from popular anime franchises such as “Yu-Gi-Oh!” and “One Piece” have been soaring in value across the board. The most sought-after are Pokémon cards (commonly known as “Pokéka”). Originally designed for a competitive card game, rare cards with low pull rates—such as “Special Art Rare” and “Ultra Rare” cards—are now being bought and sold for enormous sums.

Pokémon cards are especially popular among overseas buyers, and in some cases their prices multiply several times over in a very short period. As a result, the resale market is experiencing unprecedented growth.

“Cards that used to sell for a few hundred or a few thousand yen can now be worth millions or even tens of millions of yen. Prices fluctuate daily based on supply and demand, and there are dedicated websites where you can track real-time price movements. At this point, they’ve essentially become financial products. There are even full-time resellers making several million yen in profit every month by repeatedly buying and selling cards,” says a collector in his 20s from Tokyo.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Pokémon cards, and the many commemorative events being held are also contributing to rising prices.

“Rather than a hobby, it feels like there’s been a sudden increase in people running a ‘sedori’ business—gathering information on social media, buying cheaply, and selling at a higher price for profit. They’ve become investment targets,” says another collector.

What is troubling is that organized crime groups have reportedly begun exploiting the trading card boom.

A person with ties to a major organized crime syndicate and deep knowledge of the underworld explains:

“It’s basically money laundering. Money earned from things like special fraud schemes can’t be deposited in banks. Holding large amounts of cash attracts police attention and also creates the risk of being hit by a “tataki” (robbery) from another criminal group, so they want to ‘clean’ the money and move it somewhere safe.

In the past, they’d buy bank accounts under other people’s names or convert cash into gold bullion, but crackdowns have become stricter. Popular Pokémon cards almost never lose value, they’re small so storage isn’t a problem, and they can be quickly converted back into cash.”

The owner of a store near Akihabara in Tokyo that deals in valuable cards also testified:

“Recently, police inquiries about customers who bought or sold cards have suddenly increased. We require identification such as a driver’s license, but some stores don’t verify identities. There are also cases where forged IDs are used, making it difficult to track down the actual person involved.”

Trading cards are also allegedly used to move illicit funds overseas.

“Trying to take large amounts of cash or precious metals abroad carries a high risk of being caught during baggage inspections. But trading cards are different—even a super-rare card worth several million yen just looks like a toy. Unless you’re carrying an obviously excessive quantity, customs will usually let it pass. There are even groups that use young people to regularly transport wealth overseas by converting it into trading cards,” says a source knowledgeable about money laundering.

An active investigator also stated that valuable Pokémon cards are sometimes discovered during searches of suspects’ homes.

“Not just fraud, but people involved in illegal businesses such as drug trafficking and underground casinos are converting criminal proceeds into popular trading cards. However, unlike gold bullion, cards don’t have individual serial numbers. That means it’s impossible to determine where a card was obtained, making it difficult to prove the flow of money based on the cards alone. The reality is that uncovering the full picture is extremely challenging,” said an investigator with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

Like an underground bank

As reporting on the issue progressed, information emerged that recently, foreigners have been purchasing trading cards in ways that are clearly unnatural.

One afternoon on a holiday, while observing a card shop in Tokyo, two Asian men entered the store looking completely at ease. Both appeared to be in their twenties. One was dressed casually in a luxury-brand hoodie. While looking at his smartphone screen, he spoke to a store clerk and proceeded to buy one expensive, highly sought-after card after another.

He paid with a credit card and, without spending much time even looking at the card designs, purchased approximately ¥2.5 million worth of trading cards in about ten minutes before leaving. A source familiar with money-laundering practices explained:

“They were probably Chinese. In China, there are strict restrictions on taking yuan out of the country, so only a small amount of cash can be brought into Japan. To get around this, they use Chinese credit cards such as UnionPay cards to buy Pokémon cards in Japan and then quickly resell them.

The purchase is paid for in yuan, but by selling the Pokémon cards they obtain foreign currency—in this case, Japanese yen. This method is used when they want cash on hand or when they are starting a business in Japan.”

In other words, a system resembling an underground bank has emerged through the medium of trading cards.

There are also groups that travel overseas, purchase rare cards locally, and bring them back to Japan for resale. In many cases, the profits from these sales are not declared, and Japan’s tax authorities have reportedly intensified their monitoring efforts.

Card companies have called for restrictions on reselling, but according to the source quoted earlier, people can still do pretty much whatever they want, and the market has effectively become lawless.

The reality that popular trading cards are being used as tools within the criminal underworld is becoming increasingly apparent.

From the June 5 and 12, 2026 issue of “FRIDAY”