Thieves tunnel into sports card store, steal nearly $30K in merchandise

CHICO, Calif. — Two thieves cut through a wall to tunnel into a Northern California sports card shop on Thursday and stole approximately $30,000 worth of merchandise.

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The thieves broke into Sierra Nevada Sports Cards in Chico, Sports Collectors Daily reported. The store’s owner, Kyle Dahlgren, told the collectibles news website that the store is located in a strip mall and that the office next door to him was vacant and did not have an alarm system.

Surveillance video from the card shop showed two men crawling through a small hole in the wall, before grabbing cards and leaving in minutes, KRCR-TV reported.

“They knew kind of where to stay and where to stay out of so I’d say it’s likely someone who has been in here before,” Dahlgren told the television. “Which is unfortunate because we pride ourselves on being friendly and trusting to everyone that walks in.”

Dahlgren said that among the cards taken was a 1954 Topps card of Jackie Robinson, KSHL-TV reported. The card is graded a 3 out of 10 by the SGC grading service, Sports Collectors Daily reported. The thieves also took recent Pokemon cards but left many valuable boxes and cards sitting on shelves and in display cases.

“They went straight for our Pokémon box,” Dahlgren told KRCR. “They were in a rush. It’s pretty easy to tell, we found some fairly high dollar cards just sitting on the ground.”

Other items stolen include cards of Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and Aaron Rodgers, Sports Collectors Daily reported.