Key Takeaways
- A San Mateo card sshow vendor recognized a rare anime card from a Facebook theft warning and alerted security, leading police to recover it.
- The owner lost the card in July after a buyer promised $30,000 but handed over only a few hundred dollars before fleeing.
- Police arrested 44-year-old Constantin Nitescu on theft-related charges and said he had previously tried to sell the card in two other cities.
A vendor working a trading card convention in San Mateo, California, over the weekend was handed a rare anime card to appraise and realized he had seen it before—in a Facebook post warning collectors about a $30,000 deal gone wrong.
KRON 4 reports that on Monday (Oct. 26), police were called to the San Mateo Event Center after security detained the man who tried to make the sale. Officers reportedly recovered the card and booked him.
The man who was allegedly defrauded had posted about the incident in a collectors' Facebook group to put other enthusiasts on alert.
Investigators said the chain started in July in Garden Grove, where the victim agreed to sell the rare card for $30,000. He handed it over after receiving what he believed was the full cash payment.
The man later counted only a few hundred dollars. The buyer was gone with the card, and the victim filed a report with Garden Grove police.
Police identified the man detained in San Mateo as 44-year-old Constantin Nitescu of Washington, who they say gave officers a false identity.
Nitescu had allegedly tried to move the same card at least twice before, once in Las Vegas and once at a card show in Santa Clara County. Both attempts failed as police were called, but he left before officers arrived.
Nitescu was booked into San Mateo County Jail on suspicion of grand theft, possession of stolen property, theft by false pretenses, and providing false identification to law enforcement.
The incident lands weeks after two pallets of rare cards, worth an estimated $963,000, were taken from a FedEx truck parked in Orange County earlier this month.
