An enormous shipment of fake Pokemon toys, numbered at around 530,000, was smuggled into South Korea and dropped into arcade crane games. Authorities caught wind of the illegal wave of bootleg toys (manufactured in China) and took possession of the whole lot, including going to arcade locations and removing the plushies from crane machines.
This enormous wave of roughly half a million Pokemon toys is valued at over six million dollars. The shipment hit South Korea in a period between April 25 and June 2, and the seize by authorities was captured on South Korean broadcast news outlets such as Yonhap News and KBS TV.
We sourced this story from Kotaku, and a user comment added some interesting insight to this story. While Pokemon is an enormous phenomenon spanning several decades in America and Japan, it’s less prolific in South Korea. The merchandise flow from official channels is likely low because of this, so crane game operators likely have extra incentive to stock bootleg products due to demand.
Source: Kotaku