A warehouse wall is not supposed to be the weak point in a card supply chain. Nottinghamshire Police say a group drilled through the wall of a business premises in Retford and took 26 boxes of collectable Pokémon cards, and six men have now been charged over the break in. For collectors the case is one more sign that sealed boxes now get guarded and targeted and chased like cash.
What police say happened
The theft happened on 17 December 2025 at premises on Aurillac Way in Retford. Police say the group got inside by drilling through a wall and left with 26 boxes of cards that the reports describe as high value. No public value figure has been given for the boxes, and the reports do not name the business or say which sets the boxes held. Those gaps matter because the court stage is often where the contents and the value finally get stated on the record.
The six men charged
All six men are charged with conspiracy to commit burglary. Liam Duce is 25 and Liam Parker is 28, and both are listed at HMP Lancaster Farms. Daniel Milligan is 27 and is listed at HMP Hull. Brandon Coats is 20 and from Broom Terrace in Leeds. Matthew Joel Middleton is 44 and from Pawson Street in Leeds. Mohammed Hussan is 32 and from Whiteacre Road in Newcastle under Lyme. All six are due to appear before Mansfield Magistrates Court on 17 November 2026. A charge is an allegation at this stage, and none of the six has been convicted over this theft.
Detective Constable Christine Hewlett of Nottinghamshire Police said the force was pleased that a number of suspects have now been charged in connection with the incident. One short line from her statement carries the point for every shop and warehouse holding sealed stock. “Burglary offences such as this can cause significant financial and emotional harm to businesses and their employees.”
Why collectors should care
Our take is that the method tells the story. Drilling through a wall is not an impulse grab, and 26 boxes is stock at warehouse scale rather than a shelf sweep. That is the same pressure we have tracked this month on the other side of the Atlantic, where the FBI is now part of the case over graded cards taken from a FedEx truck in Santa Ana, a case we covered in our October 24 follow up. Sealed product keeps getting treated as a liquid asset, and the cost lands on honest shops through tougher security and higher insurance and slower access to stock.
For buyers the lesson is duller but useful. Boxes that surface far below market with no invoice and no history deserve hard questions, especially while the reports in this case have not said whether any of the 26 boxes were recovered. Police have not published a list of the missing boxes here, so there is no checklist to run the way PSA gave buyers in the Santa Ana case. Provenance is the tool that remains, and it costs nothing to ask for it.
What to watch next
Watch the court date on 17 November 2026 at Mansfield Magistrates Court, because a first appearance can bring fuller charge details and can put a value and a contents list on the record for the first time. Watch for any police update on recovered stock, and for whether the case stays with the magistrates or moves up to a higher court. We will update this story if the boxes are identified in court.