A Pokemon collector is in “disbelief” after having $70,000 worth of product and cards stolen from his shop at a flea market in Winnipeg’s South Osborne neighbourhood on Friday night.
“There’s a lot of things that go through your mind, but mostly it’s just the disappointment and the disrespect,” said Kenan Hyseni, the owner and operator of Mulvey Market.
“For this to happen to us or anyone else within the community is absolutely heartbreaking.”
Hyseni says they were having a trade night — which they have whenever new Pokemon sets are released, where they sell and trade product amongst each other — on Friday evening, when they suspect someone stayed behind and hid away until it was over.
Security footage shared with CBC News appears to show an individual wearing a black hood walk out of a back door with a large blue bag, which Hyseni suspects was carrying his product.
The next day, he got a call from his landlord saying the building’s alarm had been tripped and someone was seen on tape leaving with the blue bag.
“So when I came back in here, I inspected the market and I saw that all my stuff was pretty much taken and stolen,” said Hyseni.
Among items stolen were sealed product, booster boxes, specialty collection boxes, and single cards “worth lots of money,” he said.
“I had a couple boxes that were worth $4,000 to $5,000 a piece, I had three or four of those, and then the booster boxes, especially of the older sets … I’d had fifteen of those — so some were $1,000, some were $2,000, some were $3,000, it just depended on the set.”
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have collectors insurance to help recover the costs of what was stolen, because of how expensive insurance premiums are, he said.
“If I don’t get any of the product back, I won’t be getting any of my money back,” he said.
Others like Shan Neri and Michael Restiaux, who buy, sell, and collect Pokemon cards at the Mulvey Market felt terrible for Hyseni.
“[It’s] terrible news, Kenan is a really nice vendor here and a really nice guy — he’s always there is for everybody if someone needs anything, for any Pokémon needs,” said Neri.
“In a community that is so tightly knit, for something like that to happen, it’s just, it’s like a knife to the chest,” said Restiaux.
“It’s terrible, so we’re pretty upset about it, yesterday was a really rough day here because of that.”
Hyseni started collecting cards about four or five years ago, when he decided to get back into it during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He says the nostalgia was a big draw, and also the popularity Pokemon regained since the pandemic. Last February was the 30th anniversary of Pokemon.
“Pokemon has increased in value drastically since I’d say COVID, 2020,” Hyseni said. “It’s become one of the best investments that anyone can make.”
However, the rise in value has made Pokemon cards a target for thieves.
Last year, the owner of a Winnipeg collectibles store estimated they lost $5,000 worth of product — mostly Pokemon and sports cards — when their store on Main St. got broken into.
Around the same time in early 2025, two locations of an Ottawa hobby store were also burgled with $10,000 worth of products, including Pokemon cards.
Earlier this year, collectibles stores in British Columbia were broken into with tens of thousands of dollars worth of rare Pokemon cards.
Two stores in Ajax, Ont., were also broken into this past summer where the thieves made off with thousands of dollars worth of high-value trading cards.
Hyseni is convinced that whoever took the cards from his shop knew what they were after.
“Whoever did this knew the value of Pokemon, knew the value of the boxes,” he said.
“So it wasn’t just a random it, it was someone that knew the market — it was someone that would have known the market, the Pokemon market for sure.”
Hyseni says he’s filed a police report.
