Tom Brady NYC baseball card store theft suspect wanted in string of similar crimes, police say
A suspect who stole nearly $10,000 worth of baseball and Pokémon cards from Tom Brady's CardVault store in New York City is wanted in connection to a string of similar crimes, police said.
The theft happened on Oct. 20 at the baseball card store located on Lafayette Street, between Spring and Prince streets.
According to police, a man entered the business and brought $2,633 worth of Topps baseball cards and Pokémon cards to the register. Police said that when the Visa card he tried to pay with was declined, the store worker handed him the card reader machine.
The suspect allegedly somehow manipulated the machine to make it appear the purchase was approved, but the payment did not actually go through. Police said the suspect then left the store with the cards.
The same man later returned and tried to purchase $2,558 worth of baseball cards, according to police. His credit card was again declined, and the suspect again manipulated the machine to make it seem like the card was accepted before leaving with the cards, police said.
The suspect returned for a third and final time just before 6:30 p.m. and stole $4,528 of cards using the same routine as the previous two fraudulent purchases, according to police.
Investigators do not believe the store employee was working with the suspect.
All three thefts were caught on surveillance footage. After police released images of the suspect, investigators said an unaffiliated card store in Brooklyn reported the same man had stolen $500 worth of cards from their store on Oct. 1.
Investigators said an unaffiliated card store in Nashville, Tennessee, also claimed the same man had made $3,000 worth of fraudulent purchases, then tried to sell the merchandise on eBay and to a card shop in Alabama.
No arrests have been made at this time. The thefts are being investigated by the NYPD Financial Crimes Task Force.
CardVault by Tom Brady was founded in 2020 and now has nine locations across the country, mostly concentrated in the northeast. In addition to the SoHo location there are stores in East Hampton, one near MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, at Foxwoods in Connecticut, near the TD Garden in Boston, near Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massacusetts, as well as locations in Chicago, Dallas and the Mall of America in Minnesota.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips on the Crime Stoppers website at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, on X @NYPDTips.
