Fraud Friday: What People Will Do for a Rare Pokémon Card

February 20, 2026

Bob Coleman
Founder & Publisher

Fraud Friday: What People Will Do for a Rare Pokémon Card

The recent news of WWE wrestler Logan Paul selling a Pokémon Pikachu card for $16 million plus reinforces the popularity of collecting these rare cards.

And a Georgia man wanted one back in 2020. And so he thought it perfectly fine to get one through SBA PPP loan fraud.

Vinath Oudomsine created a company out of thin air that had supposedly been operating for two years with 10 employees and a 12-month gross revenue of $235,000. By manipulating the numbers, he obtained a PPP loan for $85,000.

He then bought one of the Holy Grails of Pokémon cards for $57,789: a 1999 first-edition Holo Charizard Pokémon card.

Only 4,216 were printed. And only 125 have achieved the coveted PSA Gem Mint 10 grade, the highest grade a card can receive from a grading agency, where collectors pay a $35 fee to have it sealed in plastic in perpetuity.

Within a year of acquiring the card, Oudomsine was arrested for the $85,000 PPP loan fraud.

Judge Dudley Brown thought little of the fraudster at his sentencing hearing. 

“We’ve had, by a rough estimate, countless funds in CARES Act and other infusions into the economy. We’ve run the national debt up probably six trillion dollars or more in all of this.

“And I have no intention of being ironic or sarcastic.

“I can say, though, without any hesitation, that for his part in all of this, Mr. Oudomsine has expressed his gratitude for the efforts of the Congress, the administration, the president, and the taxpayers of this country with an $85,000 insult.

“And that’s what it amounts to—not just a flippant show of some obscene gesture, but a carefully planned, carefully executed application to the salutary program for the most venal objective: to steal $85,000 from the taxpayers of this country.

“With every expectation, after spilling the beans to the FBI, he was to walk into the courtroom, make an apology, and walk out, which of course did not happen.

“And now we are spinning the wheels of the government, which do not turn inexpensively, in addition to having an open-ended FBI investigation here in a federal prosecution. We’ve got the government in the business of selling this—I feel foolish every time I say it—a Pokémon card.”

Vinath Oudomsine was sentenced to three years in prison.