Scammers sold fake sports, Pokémon cards in $2M scheme: feds

The feds are trying to catch ‘em all.

Two Washington state men were arrested Thursday for a scheme in which they duped collectors into shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for sports and Pokémon trading cards that turned out to be phonies.

Anthony Curcio, 43, and Iosif Bondarchuk, 37, allegedly made the regular cards seem like valuable rarities by fudging their grades, pocketing $2 million over the course of the two-year con, Manhattan federal prosecutors said.

PSA, a reputable card authentication company, charges a fee to card collectors to have their card graded on a scale from 1-to-10, and if cards receive higher grades, they are typically deemed more valuable and rare.

But the pair found a loophole by disguising regular cards that had not been authenticated as graded ones, fooling collectors into purchasing them at false and inflated prices, according to the indictment.

One of the most notable alleged scams was the sale of a 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie card, which had a purported PSA grade of “10,” or “gem-mint,” that sold at a Manhattan marketplace for $171,700 — but the grading card company had not graded the particular card, the feds said.

Jordan’s gem-mint rookie typically sells between $185,000 and $203,000, though one with a grade of “8” has a value of just between $6,000 and $7,000, according to court papers.

The duo placed the card in a plastic case with a fake label that made it seem like it had been graded a “10,” complete with a bogus bar code and certification number, prosecutors alleged.

Other cards — like the 1999 Pokémon Venusaur first-edition holographic cards — were also falsely labeled and sold for $10,500 by Bondarchuk to an undercover law enforcement purchaser in Manhattan July 2023, the court papers claim.

Curcio and Bondarchuk allegedly sold fake cards at card shops, auctions, card shows and online — and even when they were caught by buyers, they would send them their money back only to resell the same phony cards to other victims, the feds said.

The pair sold fake cards from several high-profiled athletes like Tom Brady, Nolan Ryan, Larry Bird, Julius Erving, and Magic Johnson, in addition to several pricey Pokémon cards, in the scheme that ran from 2022 through May 2024, prosecutors charged.

“As alleged, Anthony Curcio and Iosif Bondarchuk carried out a brazen, nationwide fraud scheme involving valuable sports and Pokémon trading cards to deceive buyers and marketplaces, ultimately amassing over $2 million in fraudulent and attempted sales,” Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

“Thanks to our law enforcement partners, the dedicated prosecutors of this Office, and the many victims who came forward, this alleged fraud has had its last dance. Our message today is clear: no matter what product you’re selling, if you try to deceive the public to make money, you will be brought to justice.”

Curcio and Bondarchuk were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of wire fraud and were expected to face a judge in Washington sometime Thursday.

If convicted, they each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.