A 35-year-old Dutchman has been given a 30-hour community service sentence for attempting to sell 20 stolen Pokémon cards to a shop in Spijkenisse last October.

The shop owner, named by local broadcaster Rijmond as Ben, recognized the collection and called in the police. “It was a gut feeling,” he said. “I knew it was not right”.

Ben quizzed the seller about how much he thought the cards were worth and exactly what he collected but “I did not get the right answer,” he told Rijnmond.

The cards transpired to belong to a 32-year-old woman who had sent her collection to experts to have them valued. The cards were stolen en route.  

The Pokémon collectors world is a small one and the shop owner was aware of the other theft so he challenged the would-be seller to come back with the complete collection, which he did, and was arrested.

The stolen collection was worth some €4,000 and not all the cards have been recovered. However the owner does have back her favourite, the Feraligatr #12, which can be worth hundreds of euros.

“To me, it should be in a museum,” she told Rijnmond. “Ben is fantastic and I am eternally grateful to him.”