Nintendo / Game Freak / Garigari-KunOh dairy me – looks like someone got caught with their hand in the ice cream pot.
Takashi Ono, a 43-year-old man from Japan, was arrested today on suspicion of fraud after attempting to win Pokémon cards illegally. A competition from Japanese ice cream makers, Akagi Nyugyo Co., asked people to submit winning popsicle sticks from their Garigari-kun brand. The winning sticks have “You win a Gari-Pokémon card” engraved on them, and winners can send them back to the company to exchange them for rare Pokémon cards.
According to Japan Times, Ono is suspected of forging a total of 25 winning popsicle sticks. The company contacted the police after it became suspicious of so many winning sticks from one person. In fact, there are reports that similar winning sticks are selling on auction sites for over $ 500 (about £ 367), although a box of ice creams costs just $ 3 (£ 2.20).
PokeGuardian’s account of the story states that at least one person had to open 41 boxes before finding it a lucky chop – it looks like each box contains 6 lollipops meaning the odds of winning (for them anyway) was about 1/246. That means, to find 25 sticks, Ono had to eat maybe about 6,000 of the pineapple flavor. Yes, we can see why the company was suspicious.
All this for Pokémon cards? You better believe it. The winning sticks will receive a limited edition Mythical Zarude card as a tie-in to the upcoming Pokémon movie, Secrets of the Jungle, due out in the West this year. The card itself retails for around $ 300 (£ 220). Here’s the bad boy himself:
© Pokémon / Nintendo / Creatures / Game FreakWould you pretend you ate thousands of popsicles for a possible profit? Is this the coolest crime ever committed, or the lameest? Discuss your thoughts below in the comments!