Japanese Man Got Arrested for Attempted Fraud by Sending in Faked Popsicle Sticks to Win a Limited Edition Zarude V Promo Card

Published on 6 January 2021 at 20:00

A 43-year-old office worker in Kazuno, a city located in the Akita Prefecture of Japan, got arrested by local police Wednesday for attempted fraud in early November 2020 by sending in 25 envelopes containing popsicle sticks that would win you a Limited Edition Zarude V Garigari-kun Promo card during the Garigari-kun × Pokémon Card Game Crossover Campaign. 

This person sent 25 of these fake winning popsicle sticks from the brand Garigari-kun to the company Akagi Nyugyo Co. Ltd that manufactures this ice cream brand. The ice-cream manufacturer was very suspicious when they recieved 25 winning sticks from 1 person under the same name.

During June 2020, winning sticks were at the time, selling online on Japanese marketplaces for around 17,000 yen (140€/160$).

Now a winning stick is at least worth around 30,000 (235€/290$) Japanese yen on the market and would have been likely this price too in November 2020. That would be worth at least $7250 USD together.

Boxes of this pine(apple)-flavored ice candy with juicy pine(apple)-flavored shaved ice, were very hard to find at Japanese stores when the campaign was running. Alot of people were buying them in order to win this promo card. 


Since June 1, 2020, a collaboration between Ice cream brand Garigari-kun and the upcoming Pokémon the Movie Coco was going on for a short while.

You could enter a lottery by buying these boxes of their 'Adult Garigari-kun Golden Pine(apple)' popsicles and see if you won this Limited Edition Zarude V Garigari-kun (108/S-P) Promo on the popsicle stick. By sending them to the manufacturer, they would verify it and send you the Zarude V promo card including a letter that mentions you won this promo card.

This promo version of Zarude V (108/S-P)that originally was released as a standard set card the Japanese set S3a Legendary Heartbeat and in our international set Vivid Voltage has the same artwork, the only difference is that it has a unique promo number and a Gold stamp of Garigari-kun. 

This story also has been covered on national Japanese television on January 15, 2020. You can watch the coverage here of the GariGari-kun incident on the Fuji News Network Youtube Channel in the article below.

The sticks seized from the man his home. Provided by Saitama Prefecture Police Department. (Image from saitama-np.co.jp)

Top stick is genuine, bottom stick is fake. Provided by Saitama Prefecture Police Department.

This promo card as of now is worth (complete with the letter from Garigari-kun) roughly 35,000 - 45,000 Japanese Yen (which is $340 - $435 USD) on the Japanese market and Japanese Card Shops. 

 

Please keep in mind prices can fluctuate for cards. These are just a combination current estimations of cards being sold on Japanese Market places and Card Shop Offerings.

 

 

 

We covered this Zarude V Garigari-kun promo before in a special Price Discussion article.

You can read the original news story of the Garigari-kun × Pokémon Card Game Crossover Campaign here.


Recent sold listings of this promo card on Japanese Marketplace Mercari.


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