San Francisco teens suspected in Pokémon card robbery arrested

Two teenagers were arrested in San Francisco last month after they allegedly robbed a man while he was attempting to sell his collection of Pokémon cards, authorities said.

The San Francisco Police Department said in a press release on Thursday that officers responded on May 28 at about 3:20 p.m. to reports of a robbery Palega Park at the intersection of Holyoke and Felton Streets in the city's Portola neighborhood.

The victim told officers that he had come to the park to meet up with someone who had arranged online to buy his collection of Pokémon trading cards. During the intended sale, the suspect examined the collection, pretended to pay the victim, and then pepper-sprayed him, police said. 

The suspect then ran away with the card collection towards a waiting car occupied by two additional people, police said. The victim sustained minor injuries and was treated by paramedics at the scene.

The next day, officers used the city's networked surveillance cameras to track the suspect's car, and notified plainclothes officers that the vehicle was located near Van Ness Avenue and Mission Street, police said. Using drones, officers surveilled the vehicle and watched the occupants exit the car near O'Farrell and Polk streets in the Tenderloin neighborhood.

Officers identified the occupants of the car as suspects in the robbery and took them into custody. The two juvenile male suspects were arrested and booked into the Juvenile Justice Center for second-degree robbery and conspiracy, the department said.

Police also said officers collected possible evidence from the vehicle and on May 30 a search of one of the suspect's yielded additional evidence.