The Indianapolis Metro Police Department says it has recovered the pallet of stolen MTG cards nicked from Gen Con Indy 2023 at the beginning of August. Thieves were seen on security footage acquiring a pallet jack and making off with an estimated $300k in Magic: The Gathering cards on August 2, prior to the first day of the show. The IMPD writes on Facebook on August 29 that the expensive MTG card collection was recovered in New York City on August 25, and is currently being taken back to Indianapolis to be held as evidence.
New York residents and board game designers Thomas J Dunbar and Andrew Pearson Giaume have been named persons of interest in the case. The pair’s strategy board game, Castle Assault, was appearing at Gen Con, and has since been review bombed by irate users on BoardGameGeek, tanking it to an average rating of 4.0 on the platform.
According to the IMPD’s multiple Facebook updates on the case, Detectives have spoken to Dunbar and Giaume’s attorneys, and charges “are expected to be filed with the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office in the near future”. Currently, it is still being treated as an ongoing investigation.
Given how expensive MTG cards and other TCG goodies can get, it’s no surprise that these easily transportable and concealable objects present quite the temptation for thieves. (Although from the amount of cameras they were caught on, it doesn’t appear the culprits in this case gave much thought to stealth.)
In the past, we’ve seen thieves smash through walls to grab $10,000 in rare Pokémon cards. Hundreds of the rarest and most valuable cards from the Pokémon set Fusion Strike were also stolen, leading many fans to fear that pull rates in this Pokémon TCG expansion would be affected – though The Pokémon Company assured that this was not the case.
It’s not clear which MTG sets and packs were stolen in this instance. The real steal would have been getting hold of a pallet of Commander Masters cards, since this EDH set has become notoriously expensive in the short amount of time since its release.
For more Magic content, check out the best MTG Arena decks and our MTG release schedule for the coming year. And if you haven’t used all these MTG Arena codes yet, well, that’s just silly – and you should!