A 72-year-old man in Ohio has been charged with a first-degree misdemeanor for illegally planting a tracking device on a delivery driver’s vehicle. But what possible motive could compel a man in his 70s to stalk someone and risk several months in jail? Pokémon cards, of course.
According to Wayne County Municipal Court documents obtained by Aftermath, Ohio citizen Kent Kubasta admitted to placing the SpyTech GPS device on a delivery driver’s car while she was parked outside of the Operation Fandom store in Wooster. In a statement provided to police, Kubasta stated he placed the device in a bid “to track her location/delivery of Pokémon cards.”
Obviously, it’s getting pretty difficult to obtain Pokémon cards at retail prices these days. Kubasta was likely after the latest Pokémon 30th Celebration set, which is currently sold out across the board. That sucks, sure, but certainly not to the degree that it’s worth the 180 days in jail and the $1,000 fine that Kubasta is now likely to earn as a result of stalking the anonymous delivery driver.
However, that’s not the dumbest part of this story. As the owner of Operation Fandom revealed in an interview with Fox8 News, the illegally obtained information that Kent will now potentially spend six months in jail for could have been discovered via a simple Google search: “Facebook, Instagram—but especially TikTok and things like that. If you follow certain people, they will let you know when it’s going to drop. They will have links you can click to say supposedly this store is going to have them.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of people doing stupid stuff in a bid to nab some shiny cardboard, though—in fact, it’s not even the first time we’ve heard of Pokémon collectors or scalpers doing something illegal today. The 30th Celebration mania has led to people debasing themselves in multiple illegal ways this week, including apparently pulling knives on their fellow shoppers. I get it, man, that special illustration Mewtwo ex looks super cool, but not so cool that I’d be willing to get stabbed over it.